The Project
The Kington Camp project has run since January 2006.
Thanks to a Heritage Lottery grant, during 2008 a further 25 people have contributed their memories about the camp and we have developed a number of outputs to make this information more accessible, including a book (The Story of Kington Camp), an audio documentary, a virtual ward, new online exhibitions and a Talking Tactile Tablet to assist the visually impaired.
All but the last you will shortly be able to access through this site, while you can find the TTT and a new fantastic museum display which recreates the corner of a doctor’s office at the camp, on show at Kington Museum (Mill Street, Kington, www.kingtonmuseum.co.uk) between April and September 2009.
On this page you can find information about:
The Project information
The Camp information
- 2006 Archaeological Survey
- 3D 1944 Ward Reconstruction
- Views of the camp
- Kington Camp Aerial Photographs
More people than we could have possibly predicted recall Kington in wartime, and do so with great detail and clarity. Their experiences provide a personal insight to this period of history and allow us all a deeper understanding of what it was like at the time. We are extremely grateful to both local people and military veterans for their generosity and the time they have taken to share those memories with us.
Community
As part of this project people who remember the camp during the war have been interviewed—ranging from those who were children at the time and recall the soldiers marching down the road, to men and women who worked or served at the camp, those who married soldiers, and also veterans either posted to Kington or injured who were treated at the hospital.
The word soon spread and very soon there was a list of 90 to 100 people to interview and this work is ongoing. These memories are a vital part of local oral history and the project has encouraged and enabled community members and families to interview their elders and record experiences.
Browse the audio clips and listen to people talk about their experiences of the camp
Schools
The camp and the experiences associated with it provide a unique and powerful educational resource that brings a sometimes distant and impersonal history into sharp – and local – focus.
This project has been closely involved with the local secondary school, Lady Hawkins. With the support and enthusiasm of their history teacher, Mr Dinsdale, students have been encouraged to take a closer look at this piece of history that sits on their doorstep. Weekly meetings are held at the school where pupils and community members research the camp’s history, look for veterans online and use cameras, minidiscs, videos and web technology to investigate and record this project.
Pupils from Year 10 visited the camp on a field trip, exploring the archaeology of the site and discovering clues to its wartime history. Photographs of the site, taken by the pupils can be seen HERE
The local primary school has also been involved with a week of activities to promote discussion and learning. A group of pupils visited the camp and the museum and also met an evacuee who came to the school in 1940. They dressed up in wartime clothes, had ration time packed lunch and made use of one of the Herefordshire Museum’s handling artefacts box.
Museum
Kington also boasts its very own museum whose curator, Ken Reeves, has worked with the project to put together a project exhibition. Kington Museum.
Pupils from Lady Hawkins School visited the Hereford Museum to research and choose artefacts for the exhibition in Kington Museum
The Museum also hosted a day of activities for Kington Primary pupils where they handled wartime artefacts, studied aerial photographs and tasted wartime recipes.
Archaeology
As formal project partners, Southampton University Archaeology Department has conducted a survey of the site which will preserve a record of the camp as it stands today. Members of the community and school pupils were invited to join in and learn about the process of archaeological data collection.
MSc Students from Southampton collected the appropriate data through GPS, photography and local interviews to enable the construction of a 3D virtual tour of one of the hospital wards in 1944.
You can view the results of the survey on Southampton’s website
Website
Mercurytide have worked closely with the Kington Camp Project team to develop a flexible dynamic database driven site that will allow the team to enlarge the site as and when information becomes available. We have concentrated on the structure and data storage elements of the site and see the project as a continually evolving site rather that something that is fixed in stone.
The project uses the django framework on a MySQL database. This framework faciliated rapid development and will allow for future flexibility in developing the site further. Watch this space…..
For further information on Mercurytide please visit www.mercurytide.com
The Camp
2006 Archaeological Survey
Information about the 2006 survey conducted by Southampton University Archaeology Department can be seen on their webpages. This work has been carried out as part of a formal partnership with the Archaeology Department. The initial stages are available at the moment, and more information will put online as the project develops.
Go to the Southampton University site
3D 1944 Ward Reconstruction
As well as surveying the entire site, Southampton University undertook a detailed building survey of the best preserved 122nd hospital ward. Using this information combined with details provided by contemporary eyewitness accounts, a 3D virtual reconstruction is being developed to enable viewers to see what a hospital ward would have looked like in 1944.
Views of the Camp
Many photos and maps of the camp at various stages have been entered into the project database, providing a useful archive that documents its use and history.
Search the project database for all photographs
Search the project database for all maps
Kington Camp Aerial Photographs
The Aerial views of Kington Camp from 1944 to the present day ilustrate how this 100 acre site has changed over time. The baseball diamonds and US jeeps can be seen in the May 1944 photograph. By 1962, the Council Estate, Arrow View, has been built and most of the Eastern part of the camp has been demolished. By 1975 the main site of the old 107th has been turned into a poultry farm, and the old nurses quarters are young woodland. The view of the camp under snow, taken in 2000, provides a unique perspective. Today’s photo, taken in May 2006, shows that although 61 years have passed since the Americans left Kington, and although much has been demolished, the site of the hospitals is still very much identifiable. Throughout it all, the Water tower continues to dominate the local landscape.