Monument record 0659500000 - The Kennels, on A422 at Water Stratford

Wartime army camp buildings mentioned in letter from Elliot Viney to M Farley (B1).
Buildings shown at NGR in 1946 RAF AP (B2).
Site now occupied by kennels, some wartime buildings appear to remain on site.
Prisoner of War camp constructed in 1942 for Italians captured in North Africa (B5).
Recorded by the Internation Red Cross as a German working camp (Camp no. 55). Classified as a 'Standard' (purpose-built) camp (B6).
Note: two v-shaped practice trenches and three short linear banks are noted in aerial photographs from 1946 and 1969 near to the north front of Stowe House (CAS 6858) (B3).

A Second World War prisoner of war camp is visible on historic aerial photographs and remote sensing data and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located on the crossroads with the A422 and Water Stratford Road and centred at SP 65741 35678, Shalstone Camp was opened in 1941/1942 and housed German and Italian prisoners of war. Officially designated as Camp 55, it was a working camp, the POWs being allocated work on local farms. The first prisoners were Italians who were accommodated in tents until they had erected the modular pre-cast concrete buildings themselves. After the war it then became a Displaced Persons (DP) camp, housing Balkan/Eastern Europe and especially Yugoslavs, many of who remained and settled in the area. The camp comprised about 77 rectangular military buildings of various sizes providing canteen, accommodation, stores and administration, some of which were connected by enclosed corridors. A system of interconnected linear concrete pathways are connected to three access roads, with two entrances on the A422 and one on Water Stratford Road. There was a guardroom at the camp main entrance, as well as a roll-call area and a large water fountain. The camp also had a sewage works about 200 metres to the west of the camp, as well as a water tank. To the SW of the camp there appears to be vegetable beds or plots accessed by footpaths leading from the camp over small bridges. Between the end of the war and 1973, many buildings were demolished, with more having been removed by 1993. Fourteen of the camp’s military huts are still standing, as are fragments of the pathway system. At least eight concrete base structures from demolished buildings remain visible on aerial photographs taken in 2019 (7-10).