Hurdcott

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Remarks

Known as Hurdcott, this was a large camp at Compton Chamberlayne, an extension of those near Fovant. Named because it was on land that was part of two farms, with one that bore its name.

Although some Australian Battalions had been at Hurdcott Camp since 1916, it was not until 12th March 1917 that the camp was officially taken over by the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF). During the Gallipoli Campaign (19th February 1915 – 9th January 1916), thousands of wounded Australian soldiers were sent to English hospitals, but then the question came as to where to send them to convalesce as they could not be sent home.

Command Depots were set up to solve this problem – somewhere where soldiers discharged from military hospitals could recuperate and then get ‘fighting fit’ again. The AIF had four Command Depots based in Wiltshire and Dorset, with the No. 3 Command Depot, at Hurdcott Camp

Australian battalions moved to Hurdcott in 1916 to undertake extensive training and in March 1917 Hurdcott House became the headquarters of the No. 3 Command Depot for the AIF. Five huts were transformed into a hospital and the nearby training grounds hosted practice trenches, a bayonet fighting assault course, and a bombing ground.

In November 1917 the No. 4 Command Depot moved from Codford to Hurdcott, and by January 1919 the Command Depots had ceased to exist in their primary function, acting instead to hold men being processed for their return to Australia.

Australian soldiers stayed in Hurdcott for many months. Lacking the motivation of training and the structure of army discipline, boredom quickly became a problem. Unlike the fatal rioting on the Plain there was a little “rowdyism” at Hurdcott. One farmer tells of being stopped by a barricade at the camp entrance and made to drink a pint of beer with the ‘guard’ before being allowed to continue to his home at Fovant.

Australian soldiers stayed in Hurdcott for many months on their way home. Lacking the motivation of training and the structure of army discipline, boredom quickly became a problem. Unlike the fatal rioting on the Plain there was a little “rowdyism” at Hurdcott. One farmer tells of being stopped by a barricade at the camp entrance and made to drink a pint of beer with the ‘guard’ before being allowed to continue to his home at Fovant.

The official AIF War Diaries contain some fascinating detail about life at Hurdcott Camp in 1917. The first entry into the diary dated March-December 1917 states:

“The Depot is situated on the main Salisbury Shaftesbury Road at Hurdcott, midway between the villages of Barford St. Martin and Fovant, and at its conception consisted of two camps, Nos. 5 & 6. The situation is an ideal one for a Convalescent Depot; the neighbouring country is rolling & well-wooded and watered with several small rivers, these providing the necessary drainage. Running parallel with the road fronting the camps on the south side and less than a half-mile away is a range of hills rising to 300 ft. above the road level, know as Compton & Fovant Downs.

There are several thriving villages within easy distance of the Depot; Compton-Chamberlayne, Fovant, Tisbury, Dinton, Barford St. Martin and Wilton are all less than four miles distant, whilst Salisbury, the county city of Wiltshire is 7 ½ miles away. The main London & South Western Railway line runs about one mile north of the camp and Dinton & Wilton Stations are those most used by the troops in the Hurdcott and Fovant area. Each of these stations has ample storage and yard accommodation, and the former is well provided with shunting facilities, making it well adapted for the handling of large bodies of troops.

The Camps are of the hutment type and each has, in round figures, accommodation for 1000 men. They are well laid out and drained, and each is quite self-contained, possessing shower-baths, ablution-huts, cookhouse, dining-rooms, recreation rooms, concert hall, Officers & Sergeants Messes, stabling, barber’s shop etc. Each camp has sufficient ground for training purposes and also covered sheds for use in inclement weather.

The huts are of corrugated iron, lined and floored with wood; each accommodates 30 men and has ample window space. The lighting of the camps is by electricity, supplied from a central power house, which serves the whole of the area; heating is by coal fires, each building having one or more stoves, according to its size. Specially worthy of mention are the camp kitchens. These are splendidly equipped, 12 large ovens and 3 boilers making it an easy matter for four thousand meals per day to be cooked in each.”

Australian battalions moved to Hurdcott in 1916. Thomas Kermode of the 8th Battalion noted in his diary that in December: 'We had practice in real trenches with dinkum bombs & catapults throwing bombs, we were to have practised one of the raids you see so much about in the papers. It is really wonderful the devices & wire entanglements that can be slapped up in no time. The bombs & explosives used are terrifying in their intensity… A mock trench raid. Lieut Taylor who is in charge of bombing school let me dig a mine. I chose the man I wanted for a mate & my old mining experience stood me in good stead. A fatigue party were trying yesterday to make a hole for putting in ammunition, but had no idea … But I knew what to do & made a success of it. Loading & firing it. Colonels, majors & all the heads about. Bombs, rockets, machine guns, etc. Men advancing in the mud with sandbags around knees & elbows. When a rocket goes up, every man lies flat & still. Just like real war.' In March 1917 Hurdcott House became the headquarters of Number 3 Command Depot of the Australian Imperial Force, whose diary acclaimed the locality as ideal for a convalescent base and thought the huts well laid out and the kitchens 'splendidly equipped' and capable of feeding 4,000 men. The AIF 'taking-over party' arrived on 12 March and by the 15th 1,700 men had reported there. Initially Number 5 and 6 camps housed convalescing troops but in the autumn became a 'sub hospital', with higher categories of patient transferred to Number 7 and 8 camps. Much of the training was carried out by British instructors of the Army Gymnastic Staff from Aldershot and Devonport. The depot received men who had been evacuated sick or wounded from France and were reckoned likely to become fit for active service within three months of graduated training. Particular attention was paid to dental health, a man needing to have ten sound teeth in each jaw to be passed fit for overseas training – so he could hold the mouth of his gas helmet properly. The camp newspaper, the Hurdcott Herald, yields some interesting observations on military life and the method of grading men's fitness for service. One article explained: 'The whole aim of the depot is to bring the men to a requisite standard of health and fitness to undergo hard training in the least irksome warf [sic – misprint for 'way']. To this end the men are given as good a time as is consistent with the maintenance of military discipline.' On 1 March 1918, the Herald noted that 'OC [Officer Commanding] 10 Coy' had sent twenty-six men with measles to 'OC Isolation' who wrote a note back saying: 'I am full of Scabies at present and have no room for your Measles'. Another edition suggests that the military authorities should run motor services between the camp and Salisbury because taxi drivers were charging soldiers too much. In 1917 the rates from the city to Hurdcott (six miles) were 2s and to Fovant (eight miles) 2s 6d (which seem quite reasonable compared with the London taxi-cabs' fare from autumn 1917 of 1s 2d for the first mile). A lady in July 1918 was told the taxi fare from Dinton Station to Fovant would be 4s for a journey of under two miles; despite the rain she decided to walk. Five huts were transformed into a camp hospital, two more for dressing wounds and another for examining new arrivals – some of whom were on crutches, so stone paths had to replace duckboards. One patient was William Duffell who, after being gassed, arrived at Hurdcott on 24 November, 1917. In his letters home (edited by Gilbert Mant and published under the title Soldier Boy), he wrote: 'The scene here was row after row of wooden huts & to one of these I was alloted [sic], together with some 50 other rather war worn diggers. Iron bedsteads with fibre filled mattresses lined the walls & a trestle table together with forms held the centre of the hut. A tea consisting of bread & jam followed by a rice pudding was readily despatched by the troops. Mugs & plates were washed up by the mess orderlies after which blankets were handed out three to a man. Soon all were curled up in bed as it had been a heavy day for most of us who were not yet very strong.' Duffell was at Hurdcott for eight months, during which he acted as 'offsider' (an Australian term for assistant) to the camp barber, lathering the beards of those willing to pay 3d for a shave and 6d for a haircut. He was meant to be paid in chits from the orderly room but his customers ignored camp regulations about handling money and tipped him. He also did a stint as a cook's offsider, which provided him with much richer food than the ordinary camp patients enjoyed, but he resented being a mess orderly for the officers, whom he regarded as being 'young puppies who are no better than yourself'.

Attractions at Hurdcott included a cinema, YMCA, Red Cross facilities and twice-weekly concerts, with the depot's own concert party, 'The Kangaroos', busy with bookings at other camps, such as Codford, Sutton Veny and Sand Hill. Another popular troupe were 'The Boomerangs'. In November 1917 Number 4 Command Depot moved from Codford to Hurdcott and in August 1918 Number 3 Command Depot was ordered to prepare to disband, dividing its men between Number 1 Command Depot at Sutton Veny and Number 2 at Weymouth, but the Armistice appears to have prompted a change of plan. By January 1919, with no longer a need to rehabilitate men for fighting, the command depots had all but ceased to function as such and were receiving men from France on their way back home, most of that month's 3,095 arrivals being in that category. Awaiting repatriation at Hurdcott in 1919, Number 4 Squadron of the Australian Flying Corps had a mascot who attracted much press publicity. In Germany shortly after the war's end the squadron had adopted a French lad aged about eleven, whom they nicknamed 'Digger'. He was smuggled back to England in a kitbag to Hurdcott, where he was spoilt by everyone. On a trip to London his comrades paid £21 to fit him out with a uniform and extra clothing and spent a further £12 in Salisbury on toys for him. When the squadron left for home in May, he was hidden in a hamper which was loaded into the luggage van on the train to Southampton and then on board ship. (In 1926 Digger, now a naturalized Australian, joined the Royal Australian Air Force as Henri Heremene Tovell, having taken the name of his 'guardian' at Hurdcott, Air Mechanic Tim Tovell, but was killed in a motor-cycle accident in 1928.) When camp stores and equipment were advertised for sale in August 1919, five pianos, six billiards tables and hundreds of cricket bats were included. The camp was demolished early in the 1920s.