Monument record MBC43582 - A Second World War military base, Drayton Parslow

A Second World War military base, an outstation to the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park, is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located in former agricultural fields at the east end of Drayton Parslow village opposite Love Row on Main Road and centred at SP 84508 28921, the military base was constructed in 1943 to provide additional space at Bletchley Park’s Government Code and Cipher School. It was directed by Mr Freeborne to operate several Hollerith sorting machines (tabulating information that was involved in Enigma code-breaking), with direct teleprinter lines to Bletchley Park. The base became known locally as ‘The Camp’. There was said to be a secret passage between ‘Brown's’ and the base that was used by Winston Churchill when he visited. Brown's was a house owned by Mr Brown, not identified by this project but Brown's Automotive Insulations factory provided felt lining for sound reduction in vehicles.

The site covers an area of about 28,500 square metres. It comprises an access road from Main Road leading to a complex of rectangular buildings of various sizes, many in parallel rows aligned NW-SE. Some buildings are connected by narrow covered walkways or corridors, whilst others are connected by a system of linear pathways. A large square open water supply tank sits in the middle of the base. A probable linear barbed wire entanglement appears to surround the NW, N and NE facing sides on aerial photographs taken in 1946. To the NE, a narrow roadway leads to the base’s sewage works centred at SP 84685 29002. There are a number of buildings that are visible in 1944 but which have been demolished by 1946. Similarly, many other wartime buildings still extant in 1947 have been demolished and replaced by larger buildings by 1973.

When the base ceased being an outstation is unclear but must have been shortly after war’s end as local (unsubstantiated) information suggests that it was used briefly as a temporary Prisoner of War clearing station. Following the end of the Second World War the Royal Navy may then have also used the site as a records centre.

From the late 1950s to the mid-1960s the former base was known as Drayton Parslow Hostel for workers of the London Brick Company (LBC). For some of that time it was managed by Mr Arthur England and his wife Mrs Olga England, who ran the kitchen, along with their children John and Paula. Many of the hostel’s occupants were displaced persons following the end of the war and came from all over Europe, including Russian Cossacks. Many hostel occupants were survivors of Nazi concentration camps. The London Brick Company also recruited workers from Italy that lived in the hostel. The hostel had a large garden producing fruit and vegetables for the hostel kitchens and managed by a gardener called Michael. The LBC sold the land and buildings to the General Post Office who, from January 1966, used the former base as a training centre, with a residential school for 120 students holding GPO external jointing courses until 1970.

Buildings and infrastructure remained extant on aerial photographs taken in in 1973, but all buildings were subsequently demolished, and the site redeveloped around 1987 for residential housing in what is now called Prospect Close. On aerial photographs taken in 1993, no evidence of the former military base can be seen, except for about 75 metres of the former curving access road that now leads from Main Road to the (then) new housing estate (1-11).