Bedlam Bottom practice trenches near Tidworth & Perham; G Rollings RE 1915

[Moonraker]

The Bedlam Bottom practice trenches have featured in two threads:

Practice trenches, Bulford

First World War fieldworks

Now I've acquired this postcard

The very poor 1915 postmark is of an army camp in the Salisbury area and I was puzzled by the caption: "Marsh Redoubt Looking North": very few Wiltshire camps had a hillside to their north. Eventually my thoughts turned to Bedlam Buildings, and looking at near-contemporary maps and the plan in MBrockway's post of February 22, 2019 in the Practice trenches thread there's a likely feature immediately south of Bedlam Buildings, which possibly are those in the photo behind the redoubt. And IIRC there is a hillside to the north.

But all that I've read of the Bedlam practice area suggests trenches rather than anything as substantial as the redoubt.

It would be interesting to know where G Rollings RE was based in 1915 - possibly he was involved in the construction of the redoubt.

Informed local opinion would be appreciated.

I shall also PM those who contributed to the two previous threads and who have not visited us for a while.

(There was one other bidder for the card, who pushed the price upwards and perhaps knew the location.)

 

Moonraker

 

 

Edited 5 August , 2021 by Moonraker

[HERITAGE PLUS]

Moonraker

This may be a red herring but there is mention of redoubts in this document.

https://breakinggroundheritage.org.uk/onewebmedia/Perham Down Evaluation Report v1.pdf

Dave

 

[Moonraker]

Thanks for that, Dave

There's a link to the report somewhere in one of the two threads I mentioned and I had it in my notes, but giving it in this new thread will help others to check out the terrain. Figure 2 shows the "likely feature immediately south of Bedlam Buildings, which possibly are those in the photo behind the redoubt" - next to a pond.

Not bad walking country, either, and I'm minded to head out that way, card (suitably protected) in hand to see if the skyline matches (though first I have two other visits to Wiltshire scheduled, both north of the Plain).

Edited 5 August , 2021 by Moonraker

[MBrockway]

 Thanks for the alert via PM - great postcard!

I  took "redoubt" to be the oval rings of trenches in the Reserve (most westerly) Line.  Each of the four Sections of the training area has one of these to the rear.

Your photo could well be the No 2 Section Redoubt - marked with ? below.   My estimate for its Grid Ref is SU 2492 4626 [Edit: on further investigation, this is ~50m too far west.  I'm working on a more accurate position, but provisionally I'll go with SU 2498 4626]

This was well placed on the tip of a blunt spur with axis SW-NE and looking NE over the hollow containing the Bedlam Buildings.

It was however outwith the 100 Brigade sector for the 14 October 1915 Exercise, so there's little detail in the diary covering the area S of Bedlam Buildings.  I've had a look for in the other relevant diaries in case there was further info, but no luck I'm afraid.

NB The sketch map in my original post is NOT oriented to Grid North.

Cheers,

Mark

 

Edited 7 August , 2021 by MBrockway
NGR corrected, pending further plotting to give best accuracy

[Moonraker]

Thanks for your input, Mark, and for me giving a better understanding of the plan. But the redoubt in my photo does seem to be very close to what I take to be farm buildings.

Sadly the 1923 revision of the 25-inch OS map shows nothing of the wartime infrastructure. just the original Bedlam Buildings.

Moonraker

[MBrockway]

1 hour ago, Moonraker said:

Thanks for your input, Mark, and for me giving a better understanding of the plan. But the redoubt in my photo does seem to be very close to what I take to be farm buildings.

Sadly the 1923 revision of the 25-inch OS map shows nothing of the wartime infrastructure. just the original Bedlam Buildings.

Moonraker

 

Sorry - I cropped off the scale to keep the image detail.

 

The centre of the eastern edge of redoubt in Section Two is 180m from the Bedlam Buildings.

 

Cheers,

Mark

[carlosrocha]

Interesting photo - could be mistaken but from memory it possobly looks a bit too 'flat' for the location of the Perham Down trenches looking north (but it's been a few years since the dig!).

Carlos 

[Moonraker]

Because the card has a partial Salisbury camp postmark does not necessarily mean that the scene is local (an assumption falsely made by some eBay vendors). I have a number of cards posted a long way from the locality featured.

Enlarging the photograph does not help. Is that really a four-armed telephone pole (alongside another post)? Almost certainly the original farmhouse would not have had a telephone and I don't think that the army would have installed a telephone system - and there are no other poles to be seen. This 25-in map of 1924 shows a flagpole to the north of Bedlam Buildings (and danger posts to the east) and the former featured in the 1910 edition. (As previously suggested, I've been unable to find an OS map that shows the trench infrastructure.)

Behind the two posts, full magnification (400%) shows several rectangular shapes that might almost be a line of railway vehicles but are probably huts.

And if only we knew a little more about G Rollings RE and where he was in 1915 ...

I'm also trying to work out the construction of the redoubt. I can see no firesteps, does the white slab in the foreground incline sharply upward and what about the doorway?

Edited 8 August , 2021 by Moonraker

[Moonraker]

Let it be confessed that I posted an image of the card before I'd received it. The actual card has now arrived and I can inspect the back. (Many eBay vendors show backs, sometimes even when they're blank, but this one didn't.)

The postmark is indeed a poor one but "*****rd Camp B O, Salisbury" refers to Bulford Camp. (I considered "Bustard Camp", but its wartime postmarks included "Devizes", rather than Salisbury, referring to the town where military mail was processed.) Only "1915" and "29" are legible from the date..

The card was sent by "Alf" to his mother in Guernsey, though he tells her that he had accidentally put Ada Lister's name on it. So no clues there.

One would have thought that Alf might have told Mum what the card showed - it must have been a bit of a mystery for her.

[Moonraker]

Oh dear! I've been looking again at old maps and the 25in one published just before the war doesn't show any actual structures at Bedlam, as seem to appear on my postcard. They do feature in the 1894 revision published in 1896 and the remains of one of them is suggested by the incomplete rectangle next to the pond on Mark's 1915 plan above - I had fancied that might have indicated the redoubt shown on my card.

"Bedlam Buildings" are mentioned in several articles about manoeuvres in 1911-12 but the name persisted after the buildings had been demolished.

Several photos taken of the recent Operation Nightingale dig show in the background a hillside that could be the one in the card but ...

And 15 G Rollings served with the RE during the Great War period ...

 

[Moonraker]

I went out to Bedlam today. To the south and east there were extensive fields of crops awaiting harvesting. Some one had blazed a trail along the right-of-way from Markway Firs to the Old Coach Road, otherwise I would havehad to seek another route. It was very difficult to reconcile the actual Bedlam Plantation with what was shown on my 2009 OS Explorer map, though I think that I pinpointed the site of the original buildings.

Sadly, what is certain is that my card does NOT feature Bedlam. As Carlos pointed out above, the terrain it shows is too flat and the background is of pleasant English countryside with hedgerows. The land behind Bedlam is as "wild" as is to be seen anywhere on the Plain.

Which leaves the question: where was Marsh Redoubt.? Not, I think, in Wiltshire. There were practice trenches at other camps, but none so sophisticated as at Bedlam. TBH I was surprised that a construction as substantial as the Redoubt might have been a feature of the Bedlam system.

(Pedantically, Bedlam is in Hampshire but was used by soldiers from Tidworth and Perham, which are in Wiltshire.)

I fear that we shall never know the location shown in the card.

Still, it's been an interesting puzzle and it was a pleasant walk.

[Moonraker]

Having determined that my postcard almost certainly does not show a structure in Wiltshire, I re-listed it on eBay. After some weeks, it finally sold to a purchaser in Guernsey, who presumably was less interested in the photograph, more in the Guernsey addressee. I had rather hoped that any purchaser would know where the redoubt was.

The card went for £9 less than I paid for it, but it wasn't a bad price for a "genealogical" item. The other bidder who pushed the price up the first time appears to have lost interest. (Perhaps he too thought that it might feature Salisbury Plain but read this thread ...)

[Moonraker]

On August 23, 1915, Second Lieutenant E A Holden, 8th Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, based at Tidworth, wrote to his father: "We had to turn out on Parade at 8 o' clock for trenching. The trenches here are the real article with dug outs and machine guns emplacements as well as cook houses and officers quarters. I was supposed to see to the building of a sniper's post . Fortunately it was already built so the section and I made up on some lost sleep until it was time to go home."

(Holden's typescripted letters are held by the Lancashire Infantry Museum. See www.theogilbymuster.com/record/3765237.)