5 locations where The New Forest helped the war effort - that you can see today!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ก.ค. 2024
- The New Forest has played a part in wars throughout the centuries. There are still reminders of this in the forest today. This video visits five locations which are linked to activities in The New Forest during World War One and World War Two.
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0:00:00 Introduction
0:00:10 The Portuguese Fireplace
0:01:22 Commonwealth War Graves
0:03:55 Great Yew Tree
0:04:08 Brusher Mills
0:04:38 The Huff Duff
0:06:05 Observation Shelter
0:07:40 The Arrow
1 - The Portuguese Fireplace. What3words location: ///saints.choice.looms
During the First World War there was a huge demand for timber and The Canadian government sent over about 1500 lumberjacks who set up the first camp in this area.
As the war progressed, more men were needed in France and some of the Canadians went off to fight.
In 1917, an army unit from Portugal took their places at the sawmill, with a camp being built especially for them.
After the war, the camp was demolished but this fireplace was left standing as a memorial to the Portuguese and Canadian men who’d helped the war effort in The New Forest.
2 - Commonwealth War Graves. St Nicholas' Church, Brockenhurst, SO42 7UB
In 1915, Brockenhurst was chosen by the War Office to become a hospital centre to treat soldiers injured in the fighting in France.
Initially, the hospital was established south of the village for the Indian troops of the Lahore and Meerut Divisions.
Two local hotels, the Balmer Lawn and Forest Park Hotel, were also commandeered as part of the hospital. The road between these hotels is still called Meerut Rd.
This hospital was then replaced by No.1 New Zealand General Hospital in June 1916, after the Indian Divisions were replaced by ANZAC troops.
Over 21,000 casualties were treated in Brockenhurst but sadly more than a hundred died.
The war graves cemetery is in the graveyard of St Nicholas' church and contains 93 New Zealand graves, 1 Australian grave plus those of 3 Indian and 3 unidentified Belgian civilians.
Other Indian soldiers who died were cremated on one of two local pyre sites, in keeping with Hindu religious doctrine.
A display inside St Nicholas’ Church commemorates the activities at the hospitals during WW1.
3 - The Huff Duff. What3words location: ///warm.scratches.airliners
Along the south coast of England during WW2 there was an elaborate communications network set up to monitor aircraft movements.
This relied on a series of Direction Finding posts and it’s the remnants of one of these that can be seen at Ibsley.
These direction finding posts used high frequency radio bands so they came to be known as HF/DF or Huff Duffs.
Two or more Huff Duffs, 30 miles apart, could determine the direction and position of defensive aircraft from their radio transmissions. Using this information, defensive aircraft could be guided to intercept the enemy planes.
Each station was also equipped with a "Homer", a radio transmitter beacon to help Allied aircraft navigate their way home in bad weather.
The Huff Duff would have been a three-storey wooden tower about 30 feet high.
Today, we can see the blast wall of the Huff Duff, built to protect the Huff Duff tower from enemy bombs exploding nearby.
Nearby can be seen the foundations of the crew’s living quarters and the air raid shelter.
4 - Observation Shelter. What3words location: ///together.reform.unsploiled
During WW2 the whole of the Ashley Walk valley was used as a bombing range. It was used to test new weapons and to train bomber crews.
Targets of various sorts were set up and a number of observation shelters were built to allow senior military and civilian personnel to watch the trials in relative safety
There is one observation shelter in the valley still standing.
Inside the shelter, there is an information board with details about the bombing range and what happened here during WW2.
5 - The Arrow. What3words location: ///defends.senses.satin
The concrete arrow at Ashley Walk was used to point the bomber crews towards their target, at the bottom of the valley.
The arrow and the target were both illuminated at night, to enable night bombing training.
The target is no longer to be seen down in the valley but the arrow is certainly still there.
Attribution:
'Brusher Mills' picture
Brian Pike, environmental sand artist.(The sand painter), CC BY 3.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons
Thanks very much for watching this video from The New Forest. Please Subscribe to our channel to help it grow - thanks! 😀
8:51 good dog! Thanks for the great video!
Hi there. These are really interesting locations in the New Forest with a lot of historical background from the WW1 and WW2. Huff Duff and The Arrow are interesting locations. I would like to see what the arrow looks like from the sky. 😄 Nice video Rob and new friends here. 👍👍 Have a nice weekend and cheers. Sretana and Zac.
Hi Sretaba and Zac. Tx very much for your kind comments and thanks for watching. Unfortunatley drones are banned in The New Forest so I can't take an aerial view - shame. Tx for the sub, much appreciated. Best wishes, Rob
Very interesting history. Thanks for sharing. Have a good day 👍
Hi Dragon. Tx very much. Thanks also for watching the vid and taking the time to comment, much appreciated. Best wishes, Rob
beautiful place, it looks good, nice one for sharing
Hi NQ. Tx very much. Thanks also for watching the vid and taking the time to comment, much appreciated. Best wishes, Rob
Lovely mementos! I love the fireplace story😊😊👍👍
Thanks very much SFAN. The fireplace is in the middle of the forest with no signage to indicate why it's there. Perhaps I will try to get something dome about that next year! Happy Christmas and best wishes, Rob
Very interesting, thank you.
Thanks very much for watching, I'm pleased you found it interesting. Here is a link to another in this series: th-cam.com/video/2LsaPUYtzcw/w-d-xo.html Best wishes, Rob
Happy Sunday Rob and good to see that you are giving the New Forest the attention it deserves! This might be a wise move as you will draw views and subscribers who focus on the forest and not other things; so I will be interested to see how you develop the channel in the months ahead. You tell good stories and it is always a pleasure to follow your walks in the area and see all the stuff to experience - including your friends at the vineyard:) A bit different from my place to put it in a mild way:) All the best, Ant
Tx Ant. I think that Google's algorithyms place me as a travel channel. 8 of my top 10 videos by number of views are travel videos. So I thought I would try to get a better focus on the new forest vids, as you say. Time will tell. It's a hard slog to get subs isn't it 😄
Subscriber 100 ! Yay !! Great new channel Rob my friend ! Really interesting video bro ! There is an ANZAC cemetery near where I was raised in a village called Harefield. It was because there was a hospital there (still is) and they specialised in lung problems.. of course WW1 gas attacks probably saw a lot of customers to the place. Sadly some did not make it and so were buried in that cemetery ! Really interesting about the Ibsley DF station.. awesome !! Ashley walk is an amazing trail !! ..the arrow is amazing !!
Hi Andy, Tx for being sub number 100! It's interesting to find out how many of these old houses have links to WW1 activity. The arrow is amazing, if difficult to find - we missed it the first two times we went to look for it:) Hope Spring is arriving at long last with you. All the best, Rob
Great video!
Thanks for the visit!
I remember as a child driving down to Christchurch through the new forest and seeing g the remains of an old airfield . My father said the American airforce used it .
Hello David, thanks for watching the video and taking the time to comment, much appreciated. There were several airfields in the New Forest during the war. You may well have driven past Beaulieu Airfield. We can still see evidence of this today. I've attached a link to another video which includes this airfield. Hope you find it interesting. Best wishes, Rob th-cam.com/video/2LsaPUYtzcw/w-d-xo.html
My grandfather was there in ww1 as a private with the first forestry corp.
Hello KH. I hope the video brought back some memories of your grandfather. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment. Best wishes, Rob
Very interesting, thank you. Have subscribed. It would be helpful if you could advise the best place to park for each, as you did for the Portuguese fireplace. I have looked for the Ashley Arrow before and missed it, but we were rather tired, having walked from Hyde 😁
Thanks very much Sara, I'm pleased you found it interesting. The New Forest National Park website gives the Car park location as:
'OS ref: SU187157 - GPS lat/long: 50.939,-1.737
Ashley Walk car park is situated right next to the Brook-Fordingbridge road, just before entering Godshill. Start the walk by following the main gravel track from near the car park entrance, walking away from the road.'
We parked in Abbotts Well car park, which I think is closer to the arrow. This may be one of the car parks that is closed at the moment, to help protect the ground nesting birds.
The arrow is very easy to miss, we found it on our third attempt!
Good luck and thanks again for your interest in my channel.
Best wishes, Rob
@@LivinginTheNewForest thank you so much for taking the trouble to reply so fully Rob. We will go and look again, armed with your extra info 😁
@@Barneysma If you have a smartphone, I suggest you download the What3 words app (it's free). I put the what3words location in the video - What3words location: ///defends.senses.satin That will get you there! Let me know how you get on. All the best, Rob