great plan of Chisledon Camp

[Moonraker]

Chisledon (or Chiseldon) Camp south of Swindon, Wiltshire, has been mentioned several times in the Forum, and for a great plan of it in the Great War:

click here

Then scroll down the left to "Chisledon to Marlborough including Chisledon Camp and the Ogbournes", click, and the map is two-thirds of the way down.

The original must have been pretty large, as it's been scanned in several portions.

(I printed them all off, hoping to piece them together, but found the copies were of different scales, each having enlarged automatically to A4 size. Short of a lot of fiddling around with percentage increases/decreases in size, I haven't worked out how to get them to the same scale; come to think of it, the joined-together result would be a bit cumbersome, so I may be better off with a copy in A4 segments.)

"Swindon's Other Railway" (as distinct from the Great Western Railway) was the Midland & South Western Junction Railway, which ran from Cheltenham to Southampton. The village station at Ludgershall received a big boost in the very early 20th century when a line was built from it to the proposed Tidworth Barracks. Then in late 1914 a large army camp was built at Chisledon.

As well as a section on Tidworth Barracks, there are also lots of Chisledon Camp pics on the website, and pics of the site of the WWII ammo store in Savernake Forest which nearly blew up in 1946.

I'm prejudiced of course, but there can't be that many good plans of a WWI camp.

Moonraker

[Owen D]

Great find, just been looking at that with Mrs D, she was a "Chissie" girl.

We got married in the church there so the aerial views were very interesting.

[toffo]

excellent pictures, interesting to see the plans, the photo of the 2 lads "boxing" especially good

[Charles Fair]

Moonraker, Excellent photos and maps, many thanks for flagging it up.

Charles

[Simon R]

Most interesting, many thanks!

[Richard Fisher]

Great plans there. I will have to show to my Gran as she remembers the camp very well (being Wanborough folk!).

Am I right in summing that the area that is now the Traveller's site is what is on the plans as 1 Bn Parade Square on the very right of the plans - in between the railway line and the road?

Thanks,

Richard

[Owen D]

Richard I'd say you were right.

Compare with a GoogleEarth image.

Notice angled road going off to the left and farm track to the upper right.

Council spent too much on that place, they kept trashing it but that's another subject entirely.

GoogleEarth co-ords. 51°29'52.18"N 1°43'9.71"W

[Richard Fisher]

Richard I'd say you were right.

Compare with a GoogleEarth image.

Notice angled road going off to the left and farm track to the upper right.

Council spent too much on that place, they kept trashing it but that's another subject entirely.

GoogleEarth co-ords. 51°29'52.18"N 1°43'9.71"W

Thanks for that Owen. I had it in slightly the wrong place but hadn't thought to check google earth as I was going by memory the last time I was there (clearing gas cylinders etc - but as you say, another topic altogether).

I did have some miscellaneous bits and pieces that had been picked up off the rifle and grenade ranges by some metal detector folk some years ago and it is nice to be able to see possible locations on those plans. I think I swapped them for something Vickers-related though!

Regards,

Richard

[bts1970]

Thats great

I found out last week that my Great grandad returned sick from Salonika & was processed through Chisledon prior to release of service at the end of the war. Here i am now 90 years later stationed just up the road. Small world

Regards

Bob

[Owen D]

Just been up Chiseldon Post office to buy,

The Story Of Chiseldon Camp Part Two 1922-1962 by David Bailey, published by the Chiseldon Local History Group. Price £8.50

They do a deal on Parts 1 & 2 for £13.

Contact

THE VILLAGE POST OFFICE

TURNBALL

CHISELDON

SWINDON

WILTSHIRE

SN4 0LJ

[Moonraker]

On that well-known Internet auction site four postcards of Chisledon Camp are listed:

"1922 Reading England Postcard Cover Royal Air Force RAF Chiseldon Camp"

"Very unusual postal history item for very early air force postal history item. Postcard is postally used and depicts Chiseldon camp, one of the very first RAF facilities. Very scarce."

I try to restrain myself from pointing out elementary errors to vendors, but I've emailed the dealer in the States to point out that Chisledon was never a RAF facility, that the "RAF servicemen" he perceives in the cards are army personnel and that the photographs were taken in 1917 - before the RAF was created.

The Buy It Now price for each card is $149.99 "priced to sell" plus $15 postage - thought no doubt there would be a discount should someone purchase more than one card. I've pointed out to the dealer that the cards normally go for £8 or £10 in Britain ...

(The cards were posted in 1922 from Bradfield, a village west of Reading.)

Moonraker

[Moonraker]

The vendor of the cards mentioned in my last post - a professional dealer concentrating in philatelic covers - did reply to my second email that pointed out the flaws in his description and challenged him to find any Web reference to "RAF Chisledon". He said:

 

"I bought this as part of a large collection from the personal family history of one of the airman who was assigned there. everything was mounted on pages ... and I have typed in the descriptions printed on the pages and used them as my descriptions for the item listings. If you look at all the listings I have with the term RAF in the title you will see most of the ones I have from 1917-1922 are from the same collection and it seems to tie them in together. I threw away the exhibition pages after I listed the items ... I did not research this issue more before I listed them and instead relied on the exhibit pages as they seemed to be accurate. The descriptions were written based on the author's personal knowledge."

 

In fact, the message on one card says that Chisledon was where he was demobbed. (The camp was a major demobilisation centre.) I don't think I have the nervous energy to try to point this out to the vendor, who didn't bother to add my observations to his listing.

 

Exchange rate fluctuations means that each of the "RAF Chisledon" cards will cost a British purchaser £115.

 

Moonraker

 

[johnboy]

Perhaps they will be of more interest to the Americans!

[Moonraker]

The American dealer is still offering these cards, at a reduced price of £109 each! (Search for "Chiseldon", not "Chisledon".)

 

With the season of good will coming to its end, I'm tempted to contact him again to point out that there are comparable cards on offer at 99p that remain unsold, and I'm soon to list a couple of duplicates for which I'll be pleased to get £4.99 each.

 

EDIT: Well, I did it! I've listed with a starting price of £3.99 a duplicate of a card for which he's asking £121.39. (And I won't be surprised if mine doesn't sell.)

 

Moonraker

Edited 2 January , 2017 by Moonraker

[Moonraker]

I walked through Chiseldon (modern spelling) today and noticed that the Premier village stores, said to be a former WWI hut from the camp, is for sale. It appears to have some modern cladding, but the roof was in a bad state.

 

Curiously I can't find an image on line. It was one of the very few occasions when I wish I had one of those new-fangled phone thingies.

 

(I don't think there's another stores in the village, but there is a petrol station on the main Swindon road that may sell food and drink.)

 

Talking of postcards, as I was back in 2016, the other day I noticed that on eBay a dealer was offering four cards of Chisledon Camp c 1917 published by J H Simpson of Andover. Someone had told him they showed Perham Down Camp. Minutes before bidding ended, I pointed out the error. They all sold for £3 to £4. All credit to the dealer, he went back to the purchaser  who, understandably, opted not to proceed. He re-listed the cards as showing Chisledon, and sold them for £12 or so.

 

The Chisledon-Simpson-Andover puzzle was one of the very first that confronted me when I started collecting. I even took one card, showing a hillside, down to the Perham area, but couldn't match it. Finally I realised that the hill was Liddington, a mile or so from Chisledon.

[Owen D]

On 28/05/2020 at 17:46, Moonraker said:

I walked through Chiseldon (modern spelling) today and noticed that the Premier village stores, said to be a former WWI hut from the camp, is for sale. It appears to have some modern cladding, but the roof was in a bad state.

 

Curiously I can't find an image on line. It was one of the very few occasions when I wish I had one of those new-fangled phone thingies.

 

(I don't think there's another stores in the village, but there is a petrol station on the main Swindon road that may sell food and drink.)

 

 

Here's some pics for you from streetview.

There is a newish Spar shop where Chaplin's cabin used to be down May's Lane.

[Moonraker]

Owen, thanks for that. I didn't think to use Streetview. Perhaps those are the original walls after all, in which case they look in good condition after 100 years. Last week the rook looked in worse condition, with the felt lifting at the right-hand corner.

 

I wonder what use a purchaser would have for the building? It's idiosyncratic, but nowadays looks a bit out of place.

[Moonraker]

Some good photographs here.

(Post WWI the Army Vocational Training Centre was established at Chiseldon to give long-serving soldiers leaving the army training for  civilian jobs.  The men were taught by civilian instructors, a farm leased at Draycot Foliat and a dairy, greenhouses and workshops built. Formal gardens were created in the south of the camp.  During the 1930s produce from the farm and greenhouses were used in army kitchens and sold on the open market.)

Edited 24 March by Moonraker

[Moonraker]

There are always a few postcards of Chisledon Camp listed on eBay, with bidding for a dozen or so from the same vendor concluding tonight. The card that attracted the most interest was one of the Primitive Methodist recreation hut, with a flurry of last-minute sniping taking the winning offer to £29. I dropped out before that, as the card had  rust-like stains on the front. The card appears to be quite desirable, as in 2018 bidding for a duplicate reached £25.99.