Kington Camp

During the second phase of the Kington Camp Project, a major contribution to our understanding of the history of the site has been all the information and photographs provided by those who lived at the camp in the post war period.

Almost as soon as the military use of Kington Camp ended, people began to move into the vacated buildings of the 107th hospital. The 122nd buildings stayed under military control for many years and were used as a storage facility.

People arrived from far and wide as word spread that the camp could provide shelter. Many people had been made homeless, others were living in crowded conditions, and all needed a new home.

  

At first people ‘squatted’ at the camp, making use of the personnel quarters and dividing up the empty ward buildings as they could.

Later, the Council converted many of the ward buildings into 3 or 4 bungalows, each with kitchen, bathroom, 3 or 4 bedrooms and a living room. As these became available they were assigned to many families in Kington and further afield in order to ease the continuing severe post-war housing shortage.

Almost a hundred families came to live at Hergest Camp. The children went to Mahollam School which used one of the old 107th hospital buildings as an overflow to cope with the increase in numbers. There was a shop, a hairdressers, a social club and a chapel.

Many people who lived at the camp came to the project launch event on the 24th of November 2008 and you can seen them in the this photo.

If you have any photos of the camp or would like to contribute your story, please do get in touch.

      
      

To learn more about living at the camp, you can listen to Irene Jones, Fred Galliers and the Hergest Camp medley

Below are a selection of photos that have been donated to the project by people whose families lived at Hergest Camp. We will be putting more up shortly. You can access these via the Search Facility by searching in the classification ‘Hergest Estate’.