Aerial Investigation and Mapping Report - English Heritage

UNTROUBLED AND UNDISTURBED? THE DOWNS DURINGWARTIMEDuring the Second World War, there were two significant and contradictory views of thecountryside. One of these was of an untroubled and undisturbed landscape of wellmaintained farmland, quiet villages and farms. This presented a Britain that was enduring,safe and beautiful; a landscape where modernity had made few marks.The alternative view was of an intensively farmed land, using increasingly mechanisedmethods, which was producing record harvests. This intensification was necessary as bythe start of the war Britain imported 60% of her foodstuffs and an immediate programmeof intensification of farming was introduced (a campaign of ploughing was undertaken inthe autumn of 1939) with a particular objective to increase arable yields. A significant partof this intensification was the reclamation of ‘wastelands’ and the ploughing of landtraditionally not used for arable.The South Downs was used to illustrate both these representations of the countryside atwar. It appears in Frank Newbould’s poster ‘Your Britain Fight for it Now’ (1942) whichshows an idyllic view across the downs towards Belle Tout with a shepherd and his flockmaking their way to a farm in the middle distance. The South Downs are also featured inthe official story of wartime farming Land at War in a chapter entitled ‘Return of thePlough’. A photo of grass downland being ploughed-up has the caption ‘On the SouthDowns, unfarmed since the days of the Saxons, the modern plough appeared’. While thiscaption implies this ploughing was a momentous event, it was a statement that could onlybe made by ignoring many similar periods of downland conversion, some as recent as theFirst World War.Aerial photographs taken during the Second World War provide yet another view of thislandscape at war. These show a military landscape concerned with anti-invasion measuresand military training on training grounds.First World War camps and training areasThere were coastal defence barracks at near by East Blechington from 1794, but the startof the First World War, saw a sudden influx of soldiers to Seaford, from across thecountry, and from British colonies such as Canada. This was the result of the call to armson the 6 th August 1914 requesting 100,000 men (Simkins, 1988, 75). Two training camps(North and South Camp) were established at Seaford between 1914 and 1915 asaccommodation, and a training base, for volunteers for Kitchener’s Third New Army. Thecamps were established on two areas of undeveloped land on the outskirts of Seaford.The camps had ready access to a variety of landscapes for training in warfare to preparetroops for the battlefield. Seaford was readily accessible by rail and close to harbour atNewhaven which became the main embarkation point for France.© ENGLISH HERITAGE 39 22 - 2013