swimming horses, Bulford Camp?

[Moonraker]

This card

has an authentic-looking caption saying that it shows army horses swimming at Bulford in 1913 - a practice that presumably carried on to in to the Great War.

Certainly this was a regular occurrence at Bulford - in July 1913 Horace Neate of the 4th Dragoons drowned when doing so in 10 feet of water.

The snag is that I can't place such a large expanse of water in the Bulford locality, despite having walked there many times and having consulted maps of the early 20th century as well as modern ones. Nine Mile Brook, immediately to the north of the camp is and was merely that - a brook. Possibly the swimming-pool could be on or close to the River Avon, but a 1906 map shows this in some places as comprising several different streams running close to each other, rather than one wide water-course as today. A recent map, but not that of 1906, does show a couple of very large ponds east of the school in Durrington, and the houses in the background of the photo more or less bring to mind those that were built c1913 on the Bulford-Brigmerston road.

I'm not likely to be down that way until next Spring, but I recall that several people showed very local knowledge in another thread a few months ago so if the scene rings any bells ...

Moonraker

[grantowi]

What about the Avon Spring Fishing Lakes in Durrington ?

2.5 mile walk from the camp accorind to Google

Grant

[squirrel]

Good exercise for horses especially those recovering from injury.

[Stoppage Drill]

My guess is that it is the pools which are about a mile west of what was Carter Barracks, photo taken looking north, the houses being on the first lane (if approaching from south) down into Milston.

The road you refer to as "Bulford-Brigmerston" is now generally referred to locally as "The Milston Road".