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Summary

Purpose built Second World War accommodation camp, surviving as footings to the north of Bury’s Bank Road

Monument Type(s):

• DOMESTIC SITE (Second World War - 1941 AD to 1945 AD)

Full Description

A landscape survey of Greenham and Crookham Commons identified archaeological and historic features with the aim of providing information for management of the historical environment <1>. Systematic fieldwork was followed by the plotting of all remains on Ordnance Survey base maps.

During the Second World War when the Greenham Common airbase was first constructed, there were many dispersed sites round the airfield, with accommodation was provided at eight sites to the north and east <2>. RAF Officers, Sergeants and Airmen were billeted in purpose built camps: Site one on a site now largely to the north of Bury’s Bank Road (Figure 33, Site No. 2, Communal Site No. 1) and four others within the line of the Cold War perimeter fence (Figure 33, Site Nos. 3 to 6). The footings of most of the buildings within Communal Site No. 1 are well preserved (Figure 8, Features 301 to 305, 308 to 312, 315, 316, 319 and 321 to 323). The few on the southern margins of the camp in positions to the south of Bury’s Bank Road were destroyed during the post-war reconstruction.

The site included a grocery store, medical hut, dining rooms, Sergeants' Mess, and various other buildings. Although overgrown, the building bases include a number which are clearly visible above the level of the surrounding ground surface. Most of the recorded footings coincide with structures shown on the plan of the dispersed sites in 1944, all built to standard designs which may be amongst those retained in the RAF Museum’s archive (Figure 33, Site No. 2, Communal Site No. 1; Figure 36; Table 15). A fragmented bank and ditch on the south-eastern side of Bury’s Bank Road in Compartment 14 (Figure 8, Feature 93) is broadly on the line of an access road visible on one of the aerial photographs alongside the officers’ mess (Figure 33, Site No. 2, Communal Site No. 1, Building 170; and Figure 36) <1>.

Platforms associated with a number of the buildings are visible on LiDAR mapping <3>.

Sources and further reading

Related Monuments

Associated Excavations and Fieldwork

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