Small Army camp near Lydney - March 09

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crickleymal

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This place is on Naas Lane near to Lydney Docks.

I remember this little place from when I was a kid. Funny how it seemed much bigger then, and there were small companies using the buildings. Looking at the water tower I do wonder if some has been demolished. It's lost its tank but the tank must have been at least 20ft by 15ft by 15ft high if not bigger and would have supplied far more than the remaining three buildings.

I was also told that the building my father worked in on the trading estate about 1/4 mile to the SW was part of a prisoner of war camp and was used as an indoor exercise yard. It seems an awful lot of trouble to go to for WW2 prisoners though. Especially odd as they made the plywood for the Mosquito in the same trading estate.

Anyway on with the photos.

You pass this rather nice Tudor farm houseon the way there. It's nice to see it done up, it was in a dreadful state a few years back.
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The camp is almost invisible in the undergrowth
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Some inside shots
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The water tower. I couldn't get close to this through the undergrowth (wrong clothes and shoes)
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oooooooooooh, I do like this. Love seeing old buildings being taken back by nature, especially like old military places being taken over by nature lol. That farmhouse in the first pic is glorious.

Excellent pics and an excellent find. Good work mate,

:) Sal
 
Its a great little ol' camp ain't it ?....
.......Yer right a lot has been knocked down over the last 20 years or so...........When I were a lad it was a lot bigger with huts all the way down the 'back garden' of the big house and also loads in the fields around the site too......
...........The big house has been extensively rebuilt/ renovated over the last few years by a film director/ producer fella who lives there now..........many thousands of pounds spent apparently.......... I once went to an audition with a band that was living in there when it was flats and bedsits and it was well rough inside in those days........
The camp was originally buillt for US Army Soldiers working on what is now the Lydney Industrial Estate more or less next door to the camp........Back in WW2 that was a huge railway marshalling yard for ammunition and supplies for the US Armed Forces in the UK..........Later in the war the camp housed German and then later still Italian POWs.........After the war it was used as emergency housing for displaced folk including homecoming local soldiers...A Lydney builder that I worked for back in the 80s was born in one of the huts and it was his families home up until the late 50s..........He was renting the very same hut to store his scaffolding and stuff in when I was working for him but it has now since been knocked down..........:)
 
Well done Mal, you cant beat 40s military architecture,cracking pics, nice bit of history from our Smiffy as well :)
 
Nice Pics Crickley. I really like the shelves on the wall with a Virginia Creeper twisted through them. Pity you had the wrong shoes and socks on there mate that water tower looked interesting!. It looked like there was a bit of a jungle between you and it:)
 
Thanks Smiffy. So there was a PoW camp on the trading estate. Actually there are a couple of bits that look abandoned now, anyone up for an explore?

Pity you had the wrong shoes and socks on there mate that water tower looked interesting!. It looked like there was a bit of a jungle between you and it:)

It wasn't so much the shoes as a lack of thorn proof clothing, although the shoes had buggerall grip. I could see a way to the tower but I'd be ripped to shreds trying to get there. Next time I'll wear an old motorbike jacket.
 
Hey no need to battle those nettles and thorns....this is what the top of the tower is like and the view from it towards the river...........I took these about three years ago.......
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This lone hut in the distance gives an idea of how many huts there once were here.......there's also another hut in a similar state in the field next to this (about the same distance away from the tower) but that one is more or less covered in brambles...........
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Oh and the POW camp was in this camp in Nass Lane not on the Industrial Estate...the Industrial Estate was only ever a Army supply depot til the end of the war...........The rough old looking factory right next to the lane as you drive towards the camp was once known as 'Pine End' and was where the Mosquito Plywood was made....its used occasionally to house film sets nowadays.......a recent film starring Sean Bean of 'Sharpe' fame was shot there and elsewhere around the Dean ... summat about him being an avenging ex-soldier shooting up druggies that were festering his home town????.anyways......sorry for any confusion .....
 
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Hey no need to battle those nettles and thorns....this is what the top of the tower is like and the view from it towards the river...........I took these about three years ago.......
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You swine, that's set off my vertigo!

I remember them producing plywood at that factory and the barges coming in off the Severn laden with trees and only about 1 or 2 ft freeboard. It looks like the local chavs have been chucking stones at the windows recently.
 


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