Through Glass: The lost villages of Stanta

There’s been a few reports and exhibitions of work undertaken by photographers who have delved into the lost landscapes of the Stanford Training Area. There are tours, carefully marshalled around the activities that the army undertake in there as they have done since the land was requisitioned in 1942 for exercises that would eventually lead to D-Day, on a promise of a post war return. There are regular visits each summer and a carol service is held at West Tofts Church, some building remain, boarded up, part of the structure of the war games, others removed. The churches are protected.

The site covers some 30,000 acres or 120 square miles, and contains the now deserted villages of West Tofts, Sturston, Langford, Stanford, Buckenham Tofts and Tottington, deserted in the sense that there is no civilian life, no families making breakfast, playing cricket or taking tea, children do not play on the green. There is human life and the settlements have changed and diversified, Afghan markets and Bosnian villages have been built in here. bridges are built. And still beneath it all is the history of the landscape; from flint mines and floated water-meadows, Roman remains to barrows to bury there ancient dead, There are even two earlier desertions, villages lost in medieval times and still the holloways cut by the feet and carts of our ancestors mark the transit of our forebears across this largely intact..

Two or three years ago I was fortunate enough to work on a project with Poet Andrea Holland who was producing a piece of work which involved her going into Stanta and recording it. It also involved me producing a ghost image for the cover of the book. Research also uncovered a rather wonderful set of photos that you can see below, which show life in Stanta before the army came. There is something quite unusual in the feel of these photographs. I can’t quite put my finger on exactly what, they are all the more haunting than the usual photos of the past. Maybe because they are images of a pattern of living from the 1920s and 1930s that stopped very abruptly for everyone when the war came, but here, in the sands and Scots pine on these dusty roads and village greens, there were no more May Days. The end of a pattern of rituals and daily life that had evolved for thousands of years obliterated.

BROADCASTING

1.
Mousehall cottages are asleep with bramble,
the pin pricks of a fierce witch riding on the wind.
A wasp knocks at the window, cracked chimneys
whistle in the like of a farmer for his dog.
The bricks shift in their sleep, remembering kitchen
fires and children. The dog at the heels
of an orphan lamb.

Birds and weed sew seed in the crop-less field,
hand-stitched into sleep: white bryony, nettles,
fat hen and night shade. We are broadcasting
with them. We are rooted in the sestina of sleep
and seed. The ring of pines which line the fields
watch over thirteen-thousand sheep who ignore
the trees’ summons, come by, come by.

Andrea Holland.

Andrea’s book Broadcasting is available at Gatehouse Press.

All images are copyright and are not to be used without express permission.

8 Comments

Matthew aka Gnome on May 1, 2016 at 10:19 pm

I had the pleasure of working in the battle area a couple of times. Not the most relaxing of times, driving a dark green Landrover about the place when you knew troops were there too. However I do have the honour of having driven lanes and byways which I know Jones’ van trundled along in the 1960s & 70s. I wasn’t allowed to get out of the vehicle except to do the job I was employed to do. so I couldn’t visit the buildings and a camera would certainly never have been permitted. My visits there were rare but it felt very much ‘other’ and a forbidden place.
I believe there was a BBC Radio 4 programme about the lost villages.

nick on May 2, 2016 at 9:29 am

Oddly synchromous Matthew. I watched the Victoria Wood programme on Dad’s Army last night from around fifteen years ago. She drives Jones’ van along those very roads.

Tony on October 23, 2016 at 2:27 pm

Interesting read.
I live just a mile away in a neighbouring village. As a child we were always venturing into the MOD area, In my youth I started collecting photographs, postcards and recordings of those that once lived there. Also the surrounding villages. It was always an adventure for us kids walking through time past, into the unknown, the old place was full of fruit orchids, we would pick plums apples etc, fantastic memorise.. Recently I have managed to record the churches and grave inscriptions as they are fading fast.

Barry Chilton on October 29, 2016 at 8:35 pm

The description on the photograph of West Tofts Post Office needs correcting, Tottington road is incorrect, it was called The Street, West Tofts. This cottage Post Office shown was owned by my great grandmother named Mrs Eagle, her daughter Esther married and her name was Esther Rands. My grandmother ran the Post Office until they were evacuated in 1942 when the village was taken over by the War Department, along with the another 4 or 5 villages as a military training area, then called Stanford Practical Training Area.I was born in the top l/h bedroom shown in March 1940.

Nick on October 31, 2016 at 1:25 am

Thanks For letting me know Barry, and thanks also for the extra detail.
Reply

Roella Trudgill on November 21, 2016 at 12:05 pm

Wonderful collection – thank you so much for saving and sharing them.

David furr on December 29, 2016 at 5:04 pm

I was lucky enough 3 years ago to be given a guided tour by the army all over the area.We were let into one of the Churches and allowed to wander around an Afghan compound,a very odd experience! Very privileged to of been shown everywhere including where the Dads Army closing credits were filmed!