WCs and lavatories at Lark Hill Camp

[Moonraker]

An Australian soldier with the 39th Battalion AIF made a very useful plan of one of the camps at Lark Hill, Salisbury Plain in 1916. (There were 30 individual camps within the conjoined Durrington and Lark Hill camps, each designed to accommodate a battalion.)

The plans shows two sets of three rectangular buildings. Two of these are long and one is marked "WCs etc", the other "LAVATORIES". The third is much smaller and is merely marked "ETC", possibly because only a word as short as that would fit; perhaps it housed officers' latrines.

What was the difference between "WCs etc" and lavatories? Perhaps the latter designation embraced washing facilities? (A separate bath house is show between the men's dining room and sergeants' mess.)

Moonraker

[centurion]

Perhaps one had facilities for sitting down and contemplating whilst the other was for standing up and pointing?

[David B]

Can't think of a better reason Cent.

[Moonraker]

Which was which?

Disposing of the waste of 30,000 men must have been a challenge. During the war there was concern that the sewage works for Lark Hill Camp might be on the site of a putative Northern branch of the Stonehenge Avenue; it was not until the 1990s that the existence of such a branch was disproved geophysically.(Presumably the spot was on the site of the present camp sewage works between the barracks and Stonehenge.) A short-term measure appears to have been piping the waste over the Cursus (a linear earthwork between Lark Hill and Stonehenge. In a letter of June 4, 1917, Major-General W Western, in charge of administration at Southern Command, wrote that "special efforts have been made by this Command to prevent damage to works of archaeological interest on the Salisbury Plain" and proposed putting posts and rails along a large part of the northern boundary of the Cursus and part of its southern boundary, but sewage would still be carried across it in a syphon for distribution on land beyond the southern boundary.Further details can be found in National Archives file WORK 14/214.

At smaller camps contractors were invited to tender for the removal of night-soil. I'm not sure what they did with it then.

Moonraker

[tootrock]

I have a copy of Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary, published before the Great War, which defines "lavatory" as "a place for washing", originally referring to a stone table in a monastery where bodies were washed before burial.

Water closet is defined as "a closet used as a privy, where the discharges are carried off by water".

Martin

[truthergw]

I wonder if the lavatories had facilities for washing and shaving, what we called ' the ablutions', while WCs were possibly just that.

[trajan]

... Major-General W Western, in charge of administration at Southern Command, wrote that "special efforts have been made by this Command to prevent damage to works of archaeological interest on the Salisbury Plain"

Well done that man! What excellent forward-thinking! I only wish that the commanding officers of those units using the Luneberger Heide tank training ranges in the 1970's had issued similar orders regarding all the sites I helped excavate there after a visit by the tankers...

Trajan

[squirrel]

I wonder if the lavatories had facilities for washing and shaving, what we called ' the ablutions', while WCs were possibly just that.

I would agree with this. The word lavatory comes originally from the Latin "to wash".

[centurion]

Well done that man! What excellent forward-thinking! I only wish that the commanding officers of those units using the Luneberger Heide tank training ranges in the 1970's had issued similar orders regarding all the sites I helped excavate there after a visit by the tankers...

Trajan

And for that matter the American commander at Babylon

[centurion]

I would agree with this. The word lavatory comes originally from the Latin "to wash".

Thinking about that - Kipling, in Stalky and Co, refers to the school showers as "the lavatories" so possibly a shower block?

[Moonraker]

Thanks to those who confirmed my initial thinking. With that being settled (though perhaps other members will add their own observations later), I shall indulge myself and take the thread off-topic in the light of comments above about the military's care, or lack of it, for ancient monuments.

With Stonehenge being so close to Lark Hill Camp and, from 1917, to RFC Stonehenge, there was a lot of concern about the risks to the monument. George Engleheart, the Wiltshire secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, several times expressed concern, in 1916 saying that the custodian’s hut had been shook by "mine explosions" and a deeply-cut right-of-way (used by military traffic) connecting the Amesbury-Shrewton and Amesbury-Winterbourne Stoke roads and running through the surrounding ditch and bank. By May 8 arrangements had been made to enable troops to "reach their training ground" without interfering with the site (apparently through the creation of an alternative track to the west of the existing one) and, it would appear, the right-of-way had been fenced off. An alternative route was created to the west. The contractors Wort & Way, owners of Countess Farm since 1915, were ploughing the western part of the Cursus for food production and there were "bomb-throwing stations" on its boundary, on the northern part of which troops had cut small trenches. On June 24, 1918 it was reported that the barbed wire blocking the controversial right-of-way through Stonehenge had been broken through and that the track was in use again. Rubbish from Stonehenge Airfield had been dumped on a group of barrows (ancient burial mounds), the officer in charge having no idea what a barrow was. The Road Board said that the traffic using the right-of-way was civilian, not military, and the track had been used because the "Stonehenge road was closed for traffic following a thaw". In March 1918 the retired officer Lieutenant-Colonel William Hawley was appointed to protect monuments from military activities. With the return of peace, the original right-of-way was legally closed, but only after a great deal of legal activity and Treasury quibbling over expenses charged by local professional people, such as surveyors. (See National Archive files TS 59/39 and 59/40.)

Hawley went on to conduct the first post-war excavation at Stonehenge, though I gather that his efforts were not well thought of by his successors. Incidentally I do not believe that the oft-told story that the RFC wanted Stonehenge demolished because it interfered with flying has any serious basis.

In the early 1960s I took some photographs of barrows on Snail Down, north west of Tidworth, which had obviously proved too tempting to army drivers, as they had track marks cut a couple of feet deep into them. I walked in the locality last summer and don't recall noticing the damage, so perhaps it's been made good. At that time many such monuments on land used by the WO were marked by a metal star on a pole. Nowadays significant archaeological sites on military land are sometimes fenced off, with a "Do not dig" shovel symbol.

Moonraker

[stripeyman]

Moonraker

Have you seen the film 'The Small Back Room' (1948) ? If not try to and see whats going on at Stonehenge....

[Moonraker]

No, Bob, that film hasn't come my way but looks as if it might be worth watching, if only because of the cast. I've checked it out on

IMDB

and on the "message boards" there's a question - and answer - about Stonehenge.

Moonraker

[centurion]

Moonraker

Have you seen the film 'The Small Back Room' (1948) ? If not try to and see whats going on at Stonehenge....

The original book was recently reprinted - I bought a copy.

[TEW]

For what it's worth I have a photo of Larkhill taken in Jan 1916 which includes a 'toilet' block in the shot. I have reproduced the image here and cropped in on the structure. It appears to read NCO's No. 5 ? It does seem to be more intended as a sitting down arrangement rather than the stand and point. Interesting if this block could be located on the AIF man's plan.

TEW

[centurion]

It does seem to be more intended as a sitting down arrangement rather than the stand and point.

Not sure how you can draw that conclusion. It could be either or both. All one can tell is that buckets are involved.

[TEW]

Yes I see, point taken. No pun intended!

TEW

[Beau Geste]

I was in quarters in Larkhill Garrison in the early seventies! 5 Towell Road. TEW's first photo was pretty much what it was like.

Seriously though, it was pretty rough. It was a large detached four bedroom property in its own grounds that had a "central heating system" that must have been installed just before The Battle of Mons. It cost an arm and a leg to keep warm. It had two stoves that we had to feed continuously: one for the downstairs rooms and the other for upstairs. Neither worked particularly well. On winter evenings my wife, my daughter and I had to wrap blankets around ourselves while watching TV.

On the basis of my experiences there I'm prepared to accept any explanation, even the suggestion of a friend of mine that WCs were for officers and lavatories for the rank and file.

Harry

[Moonraker]

TEW, that's an interesting photo and complements the plan very nicely. Last night I was thinking that one only usually sees pics of the Lark Hill huts from the Packway, so it's good to see one taken from a different angle.

Moonraker

[Stoppage Drill]

Dear God, the shape of those buckets as can be seen at the bottom (no pun intended) of the wriggly tin walls brings back memories.

Our fortified company positions in Radfan and Hadhramaut had thunderboxes and Desert Roses 100 yards outside the perimeter for daytime use, but at night we had to use those latrine buckets inside the camp.

The camp picquet had to empty the so-called "night soil" into the thunderboxes before dismounting each morning. They were always overflowing, and before you'd carried them ten yards your legs were soaked with urine and you had turds in your boots.

"If you can't take a joke you shouldn't have joined" would have been the response to any complaint, so you just cracked on.

[TEW]

Moonraker

If you search for Larkhill 1916 on photobucket there are 6 more of my photos there.

TEW

[Moonraker]

Thanks again, TEW. Several uncommon views of Lark Hill during the war. (My introduction to Photobucket, by the way.)

I'm still hoping one day to see photographs of the large Fargo Hospital to the south west of Lark Hill and the original wooden church that was built during the war on the site of the present one.

Moonraker