Training areas in Dorset/Hampshire

[Swift and bold]

Anyone know the areas they did build up/basic training in Dorset or Hampshire at all please? 

[Trevor Phillips]

The area just south east of Lyndhurst in the New Forest was a massive training camp during WW1. Its proximity to the major embarkation port of Southampton would've made it a good location. I understand that there were loads of trenches, although the land was returned to heathland after the war, and I've wandered across the area a few times and not spotted any discernible remnants. However, the attached photo shows that the legacy of that period still lives on...

[Swift and bold]

Excellent! Thank you. I'm an amateur detectorist. I'm looking for places to find things. Another site in Christchurch area I found a base plug for a 1916 mills bomb grenade.

[Moonraker]

A quick Google suggests that metal detecting is NOT allowed on Forestry Commission land.

 

It wouldn't take much time searching this Forum to discover Great War training sites in Hampshire and Dorset but, as I pointed out when another metal detectorist made a similar enquiry last year, many such sites are in private ownership - and some are still owned by the MoD.

 

(By a minor coincidence - and going off topic - I'm re-reading Ken Small's The Forgotten Dead, about Operation Tiger in 1944. The author's interest started when he came across military bits-and-pieces when walking along Slapton Sands in Devon.)

 

Moonraker

 

 

Edited 27 May , 2018 by Moonraker