geraint Posted 19 March , 2008 Share Posted 19 March , 2008 Any Liverpool Chums know where Sniggery Barracks is/was? I presume it was known under another name but Tommied into Sniggery. My man was transfered with 11SWB from Kinmel to Sniggery, and departed from there to Ypres. Amongst his reminiscenses was a story about being marched from Sniggery one Sunday "to visit a Tussauds- a waxworks, and shown a display of VD ridden wax figures. I was afraid to even touch my own mother after that." Any clues as to the waxworks? (I wonder what happened to the figures) Geraint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilB Posted 19 March , 2008 Share Posted 19 March , 2008 There seems to be a Sniggery Woods near Crosby. Temporary Camp? http://wikimapia.org/1886485/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geraint Posted 19 March , 2008 Author Share Posted 19 March , 2008 Phil Thanks for that - My understanding of the notes, is that it was not a long march from barracks to waxworks. Though a display waxworks could be a temporary touring display erected in a town or village hall. Shall check distances! Geraint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daggers Posted 19 March , 2008 Share Posted 19 March , 2008 Here is a bit more. In a 1930-ish 'Geographia Map Directory of South Lancs' there are 'Old Sniggery' and Sniggery Farm', one each side of the Liverpool-Southport railway line, on the golf course between Hall Road Station and Hightown. The Old Sniggery is marked alongside what seems to be a small wooded area. I think this is West Lancs GC, so the proverbial 'Oldest Member' may know something. [They are not named on the useful Cassini reprint OS map, 1:50,000 version, based on 1923/4, to save anyone looking.] Daggers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilB Posted 19 March , 2008 Share Posted 19 March , 2008 Another bit:- The 23rd annual running of the Waterloo 15K, organised by Southport Waterloo AC and sponsored by Gillions Butchers, was run over a picturesque course across pastureland, out to and around the Altcar training camp before returning past Sniggery woods to playing fields at Merchant Taylors. Perhaps an extension of the Altcar Camp? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Jones Posted 19 March , 2008 Share Posted 19 March , 2008 The wax models may have been seen at the Museum at the Liverpool School of Hygiene at 126 Mount Pleasant. Most of the contents of the Museum are now in the collections of National Museums Liverpool and include a number of highly realistic full-size and scale wax models of various diseases. I don’t think any show VD and I believe these ended in a kind of lurid private side show in Blackpool. S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daggers Posted 19 March , 2008 Share Posted 19 March , 2008 More still - Googling 'sniggery' led to a Bootle Times website where it came up that up-market housing has risen there. There is also a chatty sort of Crosby website where it is saidthat a nuclear bunker existed under the Sniggeries, but I would not be too confident. Daggers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilB Posted 19 March , 2008 Share Posted 19 March , 2008 The wax models may have been seen at the Museum at the Liverpool School of Hygiene at 126 Mount Pleasant. Most of the contents of the Museum are now in the collections of National Museums Liverpool and include a number of highly realistic full-size and scale wax models of various diseases. I don’t think any show VD and I believe these ended in a kind of lurid private side show in Blackpool. S That would make sense. I didn`t think that VD exhibits would get into a normal Tussaud`s. The one at Blackpool showed various grotesque items but none of a remotely sexual nature. Taking the soldiers to see exhibits of a medical nature, with a view to dampening their ardour, sounds much more likely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geraint Posted 19 March , 2008 Author Share Posted 19 March , 2008 Thanks lads. I'm presuming that Sniggery is a proper noun, and not a slang name. Your comment on a nuclear bunker 'believed' to be there would indicate a long time possession by MoD. The conection with L Sch of H is also a fair point. What distance are we talking about from either the Crosby area or the Sniggery Farm? Geraint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
punjab612 Posted 19 March , 2008 Share Posted 19 March , 2008 Don't know what's happeneing but have tried to post this 3 times and its disappeared into the ether!!!! Fourtyh time lucky??? A friend was researching a soldier's diary (SWB IIRC) a couple of years ago which contained a reference to Sniggery Camp just outside Liverpool. He too couldn't find it. I found the references to Sniggery Woods and Sniggery Farm etc. posted above but also found this in the IWM Online Collections Private Papers No 3051 171 ms letters (531pp) from her home in Liverpool to a cousin-by-marriage (later her sweetheart and husband), a captain serving with the 7th Battalion King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment (56th Brigade, 19th Division) and the 1/4th Battalion King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment (164th Brigade, 55th Division), documenting their hesitant romance (October 1916 - February 1919) and including details of her nursing duties at a local military convalescent hospital (October 1916 - November 1918), her voluntary work in the canteen of a local soldiers' camp (known as 'Sniggery'), civilian conditions in Liverpool during the First World War especially for the upper classes, her week's 'holiday' with a girlfriend working for the Women's Land Army in Staffordshire (February 1918), and her perception of his experiences of trench warfare and the progress of the war. Hope it helps Peter Edit Finally got it to post Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daggers Posted 19 March , 2008 Share Posted 19 March , 2008 Geraint By crow, the distance from Crosby Town Hall [then] or Civic Hall [now] is about one and three-quarter miles to The Old Sniggery Wood, and a little more to Sniggery Farm. By marching on roads, rather more to both, but they could and did in those days. This would be a stroll by comparison with a route march. Daggers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilB Posted 20 March , 2008 Share Posted 20 March , 2008 civilian conditions in Liverpool during the First World War especially for the upper classes, That would be an interesting letter! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geraint Posted 20 March , 2008 Author Share Posted 20 March , 2008 Peter, Daggers, Phil Really excellent detective work. Greatly appreciated. Geraint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Nulty Posted 20 March , 2008 Share Posted 20 March , 2008 In Prescot, there used to be a "Snig Lane" which was renamed "Sewell Street" towards the end of the 19th Century. I think a Snig was some kind of eel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daggers Posted 20 March , 2008 Share Posted 20 March , 2008 Memories! There was/is a pub called Snig's Foot, somewhere in Lancs, possibly Blackburn area, with two alleged sources of the name - one with eel connections, the other a piece of harness, but we are drifting off topic... Daggers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 20 March , 2008 Share Posted 20 March , 2008 Sounds like a collective noun - a sniggery of school boys perhaps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragon Posted 20 March , 2008 Share Posted 20 March , 2008 Sniggery Wood is marked on the 1909, earlier and later OS maps. It is north east of Hall Road railway station and west of Little Crosby. It's a long thin wood which reaches its southernmost point at Ackers Lane. Even up to 1938, it's surrounded by fields. If you're looking for a temporary structure, it would be good to find the 1917 OS map. Old Sniggery is north of that, to the west of the railway. Sniggery Sidings and Sniggery Farm are close by. A quick look on Archsearch and the Defence of Britian database just shows various WW2 pillboxes etc in that area including Sniggery Farm, which is north of Old Sniggery and Sniggery Wood. Gwyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken Lees Posted 20 March , 2008 Share Posted 20 March , 2008 Memories! There was/is a pub called Snig's Foot, somehwere in Lancs, possibly Blackburn area, with two alleged sources of the name - one with eel connections, the other a piece of harness, but we are drifting off topic... Daggers The 'Snig's Foot' pub was in Church Street, Ormskirk until it was renamed a few years ago. Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geraint Posted 20 March , 2008 Author Share Posted 20 March , 2008 Excellent info lads. Spoke to a 55 year old Scouser today,; he'd never heard of an actual location called Sniggery, but told me that when he was in his 20s, "having a sniggery wood" with a girl meant....going all the way! I wonder if there is a connection with that term and a FWW camp at Sniggery. Gets curiouser and curiouser Geraint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanA Posted 20 March , 2008 Share Posted 20 March , 2008 Well this 56 year old scouser has been in Sniggery Woods many times. No curiosity at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 20 March , 2008 Share Posted 20 March , 2008 As well as meaning eel snig is also an old word for a track, often a dray road. In this context Snig's foot merely means track's end (like journey's end) a good name for a pub. There is a Snigs Foot pub in Cheshire Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragon Posted 20 March , 2008 Share Posted 20 March , 2008 Excellent info lads. ...I wonder if there is a connection with that term and a FWW camp at Sniggery. 1. I'm not a lad. See my profile. 2. The place name Sniggery appears on maps well before the Great War. I don't see the railway company naming a sidings after a sexual encounter, not in those days anyway. Is the word 'barracks' actually used? Or is it just a temporary camp close to Sniggery Wood / Farm / Sidings / Old Sniggery? Gwyneth PS Where in Cheshire? I am not unacquainted with Cheshire pubs... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanA Posted 21 March , 2008 Share Posted 21 March , 2008 Gwyn, even today, Sniggery is quite rural. There never was a barracks there. Altcar camp, quite close by, was a shooting range for the Liverpool Volunteers in the 19th century and it still exists as an army base today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragon Posted 21 March , 2008 Share Posted 21 March , 2008 Post 7 says that there's housing there now. I don't know! I've never been there, though I've been to Crosby Drill Hall and 'Another Place' (the Gormley figures). My point was that if there was a military settlement there, it's likely to have been temporary. Tents or whatever. Or billeted in the farmer's barn. I was questioning whether people are casting around for barracks which never existed. Gwyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilB Posted 21 March , 2008 Share Posted 21 March , 2008 A bit more. "Altcar was more than a rifle range it was a pre-WWI territorial training camp and was massively expanded as a hutted camp during the Great War." However, 11th SWB didn`t go anywhere near Liverpool according to Brig E A James. They appear to have gone to France from Hazeley Down, Winchester. Maybe he was shipped out to 11th SWB from some training unit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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