Monument record MBC46691 - Second World War Women’s Land Army accommodation site, Park Gate, Wing

A Second World War Women’s Land Army accommodation site is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the Aylesbury Vale Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18604). Located on the edge of Wing village adjacent the junction of Park Gate (formerly High Street) and the A418 Aylesbury Road and centred at SP 88404 22429, the site comprises three rectangular buildings accessed by a road with turning area and bound on two sides by a fence. The largest building is about 42.5 x 7 metres aligned NNW-SSE. Adjacent to its E side is a building 30 x 7 metres aligned WSW-ENE, with a 3.5 x 5.5 metres extension on its NNW facing side which abuts the road. To the E of this is a 14.5 x 3.5 metres building aligned NNW-SSE behind which is a further small structure about 2.5 x 2 metres. These purpose-built buildings were used to house the Land Army women based around Wing and the local villages (including Linslade). The site is not featured on early historic OS map editions and appears only on the 1:10560 scale Epoch 4 map edition (1919-1939), but not on the Epoch 4 1:2500 scale map edition. The buildings remain extant in 1961 but all have been demolished by 1976 to make way for new residential bungalows as ‘Park Gate (odd nos 1-27)’, confined within the fenced footprint of the former site. Also, two of the new bungalow terraces and the newly-built road use the former footprint of the two largest buildings and the access road. On aerial photographs taken in 2022, no evidence of the former buildings is evident (1-6).