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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Mystery drill hall - help sought, please


Dragon

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The perspective is not quite right but this is as close as i can get to replicating the photo on Google Earth

post-9084-1237458491.jpg

Brian

I have compared it with the origional image. The hedge across the centre of the image makes a good reference point. The modern building on the site seems to follow the alignment of the farm buildings rather than the drill hall.
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Original:

3344047794_5ff7bb4162_o.jpg

Similar orientation from Live Search Maps. You can see the white cottage, top left and the row of cottages, centre:

3367861672_c7a078f4a4_o.jpg

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Davenich is the resident 2nd Mons expert and I think Tafski if hes alive after 4th Yptres lastweek. Prehaps they know the area . great topic realy enjoyed the great wealth of expertese and lateral thinking. Should be put forward for inclusion as a classic thread even if it only lasted (so far that is ) a week. Gareth

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Great detective work.

Congratulations on solving the mystery.

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Site:

3367866654_a3ab563137_o.jpg

I will delete these Live Search Maps images shortly. I'm just posting for information.

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Well done the sleuths - though I am sure it takes local knowledge to identify the location. Today's locale looks a bit different - I perfer the old days view!

Let me tell you a little tale - a few years ago I was a Regional Volunteer with the then "Friends of War Memorials". I had become involved with an endeavour to save a memorial field. It was dedicated to all those from the area who had been killed in WW2. Who were they? Well, we set out to identify them and put their names in a memorial register.

One name came up of an eight-year old boy, who had drowned whilst being an evacuee. I pondered upon whether he could be included, since he was not on the face of it a casualty of direct enemy action. But I concluded that he was every much a victim as the rest, for after all why was he an evacuee in the first place? So his name was included.

Some weeks later the news filtered through to me that his mother, aged 98, was still alive! A while later there was a ceremony at the local library to publicise the activity of re-establishing the memorial field. There, in her wheelchair, was the 98 year-old mother, clutching a large framed photo of her son. I still have a lump in my throat at her words, grateful that the community was remembering her little boy.

Oh, and where was he evacuated to? Cwmcarn......

I had not heard of it before, and now it comes back again, so I am glad you could make the ID, for more than one reason.

Ian

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I've only been watching this thread admiringly from the side-lines, but I think I'd agree with Phil's assessment. I've matched up the scale of the old OS map with an aerial photo and you can see that while the cottages and the roads match up horizontally, the bottom left hand corner of the farm lines up with the same corner of the "h" shaped new industrial unit. It looks to me like the drill hall site is now occupied by the buildings at the end of Priory Court. If these could be ID'd, the Land Regsitry might turn up something useful.

cwmcarn.jpg

Checking the Royal Mail website, it seems Priory Court has twelve sequentially-numbered properties, with the postcode NP11 7NX. Looking at the aerial view in Post#331 it seems there are three south (left) facing semis (addresses 1-6), an east facing semi (7-8), and then a large block of four (9-12). The last two buildings essentially occupy the drill hall site.

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Looking at both the old and new maps, it's interesting to note that there is/was a canal running through the area (the Brecon canal), but it runs between the photographer & the hall (following the line of the road); From the modern small scale maps & satellite it appears to have been culverted in the area of the hall site, but it can be picked further to the south just by the A467/ B4591 roundabout (by Twyncam Rd); The water course which run down the gully between the two rows of houses before passing under the railway tracks and into the Ebbw is the "Nant Y Crochan" - any translation? The modern map does show "TA cen" but unless it form part of the school complex where is it? the buildings at the end of Priory Court (the site of the Hall) look residential.

NigelS

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This Forum is good at - occasionally - getting itself into a right two and eight over something of no great importance, with Pals stomping off in high dudgeon, sadly

This Forum at the same time, though, is brilliant at getting the bit between its collective teeth and - mixed metaphors flowing like <your choice here> - worrying the bejasus out of a sticky problem like this until it is solved.

Classic thread? Definitely. Well done, all who have helped here.

Jim

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Looking on Caerphilly planning maps, the premises to the north and west are 1 - 9 Priory Court. There is a hall marked in Priory Court to the south. Zooming in on birds-eye mode, this hall doesn't resemble the old hall. The footprint is different.

It's fairly common for the TA to demolish an old drill hall and build a replacement on the same land. I suspect that's what has happened here.

I was searching Planning because the application details usually state what the former / existing use of a proposed development site is and if we're lucky, we've been able to find some very good case studies and histories in the documentation supplied as part of a planning application. Another good source is often the Local Plan. I have been known to phone up local councillors, who are often able to tell me stuff that isn't in the paperwork.

This example - Cwmcarn - is one reason we're proposing to add a Drill Halls At Risk page to the website. These are vulnerable premises and some are tragic losses to the townscape. This particular drill hall would have been lost, possibly forever, if the forum hadn't traced it.

Gwyn

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Nant Y Crochan is something like Cauldron Stream/Brook. I translated it here.

Keith

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Oh, and where was he evacuated to? Cwmcarn......

I had not heard of it before, and now it comes back again ...

Ian - a poignant story. Thank you for sharing it. I'm glad he was included.

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The modern map does show "TA cen" but unless it form part of the school complex where is it? the buildings at the end of Priory Court (the site of the Hall) look residential.

I take it you mean this:

cwmcarn2.jpg

It looks to me like when the school was built it incorporated a new TA Centre (the "h" bit), with the original drill hall land then being sold off to create Priory Court.

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I have also noticed in some of the modern views the shadows are in the same direction and length as on the postcard. If the time and date are available for the satelite images it should give us a reasonable idea of the time of day and year for the postcard.

The time is about 6 to 7 o'clock in the morning going by the length and angle of the shadows, this is born out by the first coach of the train being an open brake, this could well be the morning milk train.

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With the benefit of hindsight, always wonderful of course, if you got to the Old Maps website, enter Cwmcarn and select the Monmouthshire one you can expand the first of the maps - the icon is an arrow pointing diagonally to the top right. At the top LH of the expanded image is Spiteful Row.....

Keith

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I have been watching this thread with utter amazement.

I would not have believed it possible to find the location of the drill hall. Well done to one and all!

Orson

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I Googled Cwmcarn drill hall and found a list of drill halls in Gwent used by army cadets. And it came up with the following information. The current drill hall is in Chapel Farm Terrace on the (SE)corner of Marne Street. The postcode is NP11 7NJ.

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Looking on Caerphilly planning maps, the premises to the north and west are 1 - 9 Priory Court. There is a hall marked in Priory Court to the south. Zooming in on birds-eye mode, this hall doesn't resemble the old hall. The footprint is different.

Ah! If you use the "locate" function on the Caerphilly site, it shows that the non-descript rectangular building "in" Priory Court - which I took to be garages for the houses! - comes up as "Gwent Army Cadet Force, Marne Street, Cwncarn"! From the Gwent ACF website, it seems that they're still using that site for the Cwmcarn detachment, although the address (as per phil's post above) is a bit "wonky." It looks like Marne Street includes what looks on the aerial photos like a rough track that loops round and ends up running parallel to Priory Court.

Gwyn, I'm sure the ACF would be interested in this little bit of their history.

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I have also noticed in some of the modern views the shadows are in the same direction and length as on the postcard. If the time and date are available for the satelite images it should give us a reasonable idea of the time of day and year for the postcard.

The time is about 6 to 7 o'clock in the morning going by the length and angle of the shadows, this is born out by the first coach of the train being an open brake, this could well be the morning milk train.

Phil

The Google Earth photo is dated as being taken in June 2004

Brian

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With the benefit of hindsight, always wonderful of course, if you got to the Old Maps website, enter Cwmcarn and select the Monmouthshire one you can expand the first of the maps - the icon is an arrow pointing diagonally to the top right. At the top LH of the expanded image is Spiteful Row.....

Keith

Keith is right.

Just a little comment - to use this feature you have to permit pop-ups.

I was going up and down these Valleys methodically yesterday and hadn't reached here. You can only do so much online, though, before you get eye-ache. Aren't old maps - paper, electronic - wonderful!

Gwyn

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That's a very interesting set of rolling stock! The coach with a white roof in the middle of the train has a clerestory roof, ...What fascinates me is the apparent symmetry in the train. If I'm reading this right, behind the engine there's a bogie coach, then two short-wheelbase vans, then two bogie coaches, two more vans and a bogie coach.

It was common for trains to travel from a major city, like London, to a seaside area in sections, which were separated as the train went along as the appropriate junctions were reached. ...going with the mid-summer idea, I'm wondering whether it's part of a holiday train that's reaching the end of its trip but with either two or four destinations still within it. If that's right, the vans are for the passengers' luggage.

I don't know about a milk train. I don't want to seem dismissive, but I actually think it's nearer mid-day. I'm fantasising that it's a holiday train (along the lines Keith suggested in the section I've quoted.) I'm thinking it's taking trippers from the Valleys to the seaside for a day out or a lovely holiday. I can feel a story coming on. Spiteful Row is casting its sinister shadow on the scene...

I'll let you know when I win a literary award with this one. :lol:

Gwyn

Edited by Dragon
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Although unable to contribute constructively in any way, I have followed this tread all the way along.

I am just amazed at what Forum Pals have managed to achieve.

Thanks to everyone involved.....I have really enjoyed the thread.

Bruce

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Gwyn, I'm sure the ACF would be interested in this little bit of their history.

And they might know something of the history of the site or be stimulated to research it and, perhaps, the men who drilled there throughout its life. It would be nice to get that for here are for the Drill Halls site.

Keith

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