More information : SU 214454: Early military practice trenches. (1)
First World War military practice trenches survive as earthworks on Beacon Hill. The site is part of a network of trenches along the summit of the hill (see Monument Number: 910060) and was probably one of the main training areas for troops billeted at the Bulford Camps nearby. Covering some 7ha and extending for 350m southsouthwest / northnortheast the system comprises two lines of trenches on the eastern slope of the ridge, with the firing (front) line along the lip of the summit [west], between SU 2137 4521 and SU 2148 4546, and a support trench 60m down slope to its rear [east] connected by eleven zigzag communication trenches. The site was originally recorded as possibly Post Medieval or 20th Century but the form of the earthworks is characteristic of the First World War.
Although natural silting has occurred, both trenches survive to a depth of 1.5m. The firing line is crenellated, with sides of 8m, and each traverse encapsulates a small ‘island’ which enabled troops to pass along the line without affecting those in firing positions. The cutting is 2m wide but the crenellation, islands and spoil heaps give considerable breadth to the Firing trench, amounting to 12m in all. These measurements partly reflect the result of collapse but the original proud un-weathered profile may have been rather different and, together with barbed-wire entanglements, would have presented a formidable obstacle. In places, preservation is excellent and one of the crenellations has a slight depression on the front edge that may have formed a ‘rest’ for a rifle. Slight linear depressions projecting west from the front edge of the firing line indicate the position of saps and at the southern limit a short slightly curving bay linked to a communication trench is perhaps an ideal location for a machine gun emplacement.
The northern end of the front line appears unfinished and is depicted as such on a 1920s aerial photograph (NMR 2145/1). To the east of and linking the firing line to the support trench are eleven communication trenches spaced at 25m intervals and cut in a zigzag, with no ‘islands’ but several T-shaped shelter bays which could have been used for command and control or as small shelters and first aid posts. To the rear [east] of the support line are three longer communication trenches, which led to the Devil’s Ditch, a Bronze Age linear ditch (Monument Number: 223739), which was used to channel movement to and from the valley floor below. A few metres northwest of the Bronze Age ditch is a line of now silted and very shallow crenellated trenches that may reflect an earlier phase of trench digging.
In addition, a series of circular depressions and small linear trenches are located between the longer communication trenches. Some of these are more recent, two-man slit trenches, perhaps from reuse of the training trench system in the Second World War, though the function of others is less clear. Some were perhaps small dugouts, although only one appears to be linked to the trench system. The site was originally recorded as possibly Post Medieval or 20th Century but the form of the earthworks is characteristic of the Great War. They were surveyed at large scale in the early 2000s following on from other research on the Salisbury Plain Training Area (McOmish et al 2002) and described in an article (Brown & Field 2007). This record is effectively duplicated by one derived from the Defence of Britain project (Monument Number: 1414537).
CAUTION: the north arrow on the archive plan points north-west rather than north, in error. Unfortunately, this means that the orientations given in the Brown & Field (2007) article are also incorrect. (2-5)
This set of trenches were examined as part of the Review of First World War Fieldworks project (6) |