Monument record MBC43704 - Second World War military camp, Whaddon

A Second World War military camp is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located in Whaddon village to the rear of the village hall and centred at SP 80639 34200, the camp was constructed to provide accommodation for the increasingly large numbers of service personnel who were working at nearby Special Communications Unit Number 1 (SCU1) at Whaddon Hall and at the ‘Windy Ridge’ transmitter/receiver station near Whaddon Church. The Windy Ridge station personnel were initially accommodated in the village hall itself, but as military personnel requirements grew, so addition military buildings were erected in the field to its rear. The camp included a canteen
where they also used to put on
films and held dances where local villagers would attend. Later in the war, the camp became a prisoner of war camp for captured German forces. Although able to move around the village, the prisoners had an armed escort, though the prisoners’ guard was ceased once the war ceased. The camp comprises 16 rectangular military buildings of various sizes, from 4 x 5 metres to 24 x 6 metres, with 12 set out in parallel rows behind the village hall, and a further 4 immediately adjacent it, all connected by a network of concrete pathways. By 1947, two of the buildings have been demolished, though the concrete platforms remain. Aerial photographs taken in 1954 show the camp still intact at that time, but by 1962, only four of the camp buildings behind the hall remain standing. New residential housing partly covers the camp buildings that stood adjacent the village hall. By 1970, the remaining buildings are in a ruinous state, with holes evident in the roofs and by 1993, these too have been demolished, with only the concrete foundation platforms and remnants of pathways remaining visible. On aerial photographs taken in 2019, these platforms remain visible in the grass pasture (1-10).