What was at Sutton Veny, Wiltshire?

[Jayenn]

Can anyone tell me what was at Sutton Veny, in WW1, please? I have searched the Internet but nothing I have found really tells me.

I have an Australian soldier who was transferred there from France, and I think, possibly, for convalescence.

Jayenn

[Terry_Reeves]

This should help:

http://suttonveny.co.uk/1st_World_War/1st_world_war.html

TR

[montbrehain]

And maybe this too . "MO"

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...c=81552&hl=

[Jayenn]

Thanks to both of you!

That does answer my question - and more! The site explains it well and, MO, the photos and info on the forum I shall look at and read again.

Not only have I learned about Sutton Veny, but realise that there must have been other Australian camps in Britain.

I suppose because there was a time when I had imagined that the Australian fought only in Gallipoli and that area of the world, I never thought of them having camps in England, though, of course, I learned some time ago that they had fought in Europe. I still, however, wondered why the man I'm researching went to Sutton Veny - now I know!

Thanks and thanks again,

Jayenn

[Moonraker]

Many of the Wiltshire camps housed Australian soldiers from 1916 to 1919; many were used for the convalescence of wounded and ill soldiers, who often moved from one to another as their fitness improved, with consequent increases in the severity of training. In 1919 they briefly accommodated Australian soldiers from mainland Europe awaiting repatriation.

Some 636 Australian servicemen and nurses are buried in Wiltshire churchyards, with moving ceremonies being held at several on or around ANZAC Day in late March.

There were also Australian camps in Dorset and Hampshire. Mo's your man when it comes to knowledge of all the camps.

Moonraker

[Jim Strawbridge]

If memory serves me right there is a small chapel inside this village church dedicated to the ANZACs.

[Jayenn]

Thanks to all for your help. I understand a lot more than I did before!

Jayenn

[Barry Williams]

Didn't the Tyneside Irish or the Tynside Scottish burn the cinema down? and if so was it ever rebuilt?

Barry

[Moonraker]

A great Sutton Veny postcard has just been sold on eBay:

see here

It is a very rare postcard photograph showing locomotives and rolling stock on the camp railway. It went for £77.50...

Moonraker

[Moonraker]

Didn't the Tyneside Irish or the Tynside Scottish burn the cinema down? and if so was it ever rebuilt?

Barry

Sorry, only just seen Barry's query. There were no fewer than three cinemas serving Sutton Veny Camp. At one, in a quarry near the junction of Five Ash Lane and Deverill Road, there was a disturbance when the projector broke down and the manageress, unable to refund admission money because she had sent her husband off with it, offered free tickets. But this was unacceptable to some of the audience of soldiers who were leaving for France the next day. They set fire to the cinema, and to barrels of oil under the stage.

There are more details in John Sheen's Tyneside Pals, with the incident being blamed on the Tyneside Irish. I don't know if the cinema was ever rebuilt, but I suspect it may have been "only" a large hut or even a marquee. Incidentally, the permanent building used as a cinema in nearby Heytesbury still stands, and the steps of the camp cinema at Fovant have been incorporated in to a modern building.

Moonraker

[HERITAGE PLUS]

If memory serves me right there is a small chapel inside this village church dedicated to the ANZACs.

This is a copy of a postcard, showing the ANZAC Chapel, which is on sale in the Church of St.John the Evangelist in Sutton Veny.

Dave

[Nayles]

An extract from Bruce Bairnsfather's "From Mud to Mufti" regarding Sutton Veny (He spells it Veney but I assure you it is the same place):

"Now I wonder if I shall incur the odium of

the authorities or prolong the war by saying

where it was that we lived in those days on

Salisbury Plain. I should like to say the

name, as it was a nice place, the nicest in the

neighbourhood. I wonder if I dare shall I?

No yes, I will. It was Sutton Veney ! (The

German mark goes up in value on all the

exchanges consternation in Wall Street -

wish I hadn't said it now.) Well, I've done

it, so there you are. Sutton Veney was the

place ; a delightful little English village it

must have been before all we khaki locusts

settled upon it. It was quite a pleasure

having all this military training set in such

delightful surroundings. The headquarters

themselves possessed most charming gardens,

but as I have said in a previous chapter, such

luxuries always seem painful to me. Mailed

fist work and charming gardens are so

desperately out of harmony with each other.

Yet all the Sutton Veney times seemed

mighty pleasant to me. Perhaps it was that

I had not long since come out of that drab

whirl of events, the front : houses without

roofs and chateaux turned inside out, still

lingered in my mind's eye. On the whole, it

was a short but happy time at Sutton Veney,

standing out with pleasing brightness in all

my war life.

I do not write all this sort of stuff which

you've just read (or slurred over) with the

idea of demonstrating that I am thinking

differently to anyone else about war. I do so

in the hopes and, indeed, with the knowledge,

that there were, and are, many who have

looked on their various war experiences in the

same way that I have.

I was merely a common or garden captain,

leading a common or garden captain's life,

and now as I write I wonder why the diabolo

I have the cheek to write about it at all. I

have apologized once in the preface of

Bullets and Billets. I won't do it again.

Here at Sutton Veney, and all over the

plain, thousands of men were leading the most

arduous and dullest of lives imaginable. It

was a new picture altogether to me. Pre-

viously I had only seen the practical appli-

cation of warlike skill. Now here, at Sutton

Veney, all the technique was being acquired."

p.s. My Dad lives in Sutton Veny.... If you need any photo's, just ask.

Matt

[Moonraker]

On 29/08/2008 at 22:23, Terry_Reeves said:

This should help:

http://suttonveny.co.uk/1st_World_War/1st_world_war.html

TR

 

Now a duff link. This should work. Lots of new photos, some new to me.

 

A collection of some two dozen cards from a soldier at the camp in mid-1915 and sent to a lady in Norwich has been selling in a number of lots on eBay. Some were common - of Salisbury and Longleat House, for example. But for a few others bidding went VERY high: £65 for a PC of a BE2 that had landed close to the camps; £69.80 for Royal Engineers at work; and £71.99 showing Decauville railway lines (temporary narrow-gauge track to transport materials for building camps and much used on the Western Front - and no doubt elsewhere).

 

I was usually the third highest bidder but was runner-up for the railway one. I wonder how high the successful bidder would have gone?

 

One card, of the Black Watch marching through "the village", presumably Sutton Veny, went for a mere £15.49 - quite average. There's an archives dealer who's been offering a duplicate for £100 for some time now ...

 

The soldier who'd purchased the cards (for 2d, 6d? - I've never been sure what cards cost then) would never have believed how much they would be worth a century later.

[FROGSMILE]

I thought this post card image might be an interesting addition to the thread.  A Cameron Highlander and presumably the pipe major, but that’s not entirely clear.

Edited 27 February by FROGSMILE

[Alisonmallen62]

My great grandfather’s brother Robert Reid lies in the church yard in Sutton Veny. Whilst researching the family I found him by chance some 20 years ago. He has an impressive gravestone dedicated to him by his comrades in the Post Office Rifles many of whom were from the Londonderry PO where he was the manager. I can see his gravestone on one of the postcards above. My niece lives in the next village and my sister close by and having visited had no idea they had walked by a relatives grave.  I felt it was a special place to visit and worth spending some time there.  I wondered if he had been nursed by those who also rest there due to the later flu pandemic. He died of an illness which appears to run through some males in the family.  I believe some of the land is farmed by my nieces husband.  Sadly Robert’s son was killed in the 2nd world war on a Japanese hell ship.  

Edited 28 February by Alisonmallen62
Addition