"SV" markers at Codford Camp c1915

[Moonraker]

One plus of browsing eBay is that one can easily enable an enlargement of a postcard and see details that escaped one's eye when one purchased the same card years before.

 

Thus it was with the card from which this crop was taken:

 

The photograph features Number 10 Camp at Codford and was probably taken in 1915. I'm puzzled by the "SV" markers. They could stand for "Sutton Veny", another Great War camp six miles away, and indeed a plan of the latter shows individual camps numbered up to 7 and my thought was it may have been that the numerical sequence extended to other groups of hutments in the area and that the markers indicated sites for further hutments. (Early in the war, Sutton Veny itself accommodated staff of divisions that were spread over a wide area. and would have been seen as the "parent" camp.)

 

However, the same plan shows hutments at Boyton and Corton (between Codford and Sutton Veny) numbered from one to four, and Codford Camp 10 was on the outskirts of the military complex, so my theory about camps 24, 25 and 26 being built nearby falls apart.

 

Any ideas?

 

Moonraker

Edited 18 September , 2019 by Moonraker

[Gareth Davies]

Can we see the whole picture please? What is it that they are looking at?

[303man]

Not just 3 drain covers in the for ground SV = Service Valve? 

[303man]

Having found the complete picture on the W.W.W. I am certain they are just sluice valves what you can see is the cast iron cover on a pipe and marker panel. Modern equivalent attached.

 

Edited 18 September , 2019 by 303man

[Moonraker]

Thanks for the prompt responses.

 

Gareth: the men are looking at the photographer.

 

An hour after posting my question, I suddenly remembered passing modern roadside signs like

 

these

 

indicating "Stop valves".

 

(My realisation prompted me to turn on my PC again to share it with you before I retired for an early night, but  303man beat me to it!)

 

One minor coincidence is that Sutton Veny Camp was nearby. Another is that the early plan of Sutton Veny Camp to which I referred above showed the planned extension of water supplies to serve the new hutments there.

 

Moonraker

 

EDIT: I think that 303man's edit of his last post included the thoughtful posting of the two images - certainly I'd arrived at my own somewhat delayed conclusion and found my own image  before I saw his.

 

As it happens, when I've passed a modern SV sign, the initials have brought to mind "Sutton Veny", but my thinking tonight was obviously not  completely joined up.

 

Thanks again - off to bed  now.

 

 

Edited 18 September , 2019 by Moonraker