DetectingWales.com

I was just reading a but about British POW in Germany and got to thinking about the axis POW's over here, Now I remember my mother telling me stories about Italian POW working on farms around the Cwmbran area but I had never given much thought to were the actual prison camps would of been. so I did a little surfing and came up with these links.
http://www.islandfarm.fsnet.co.uk/LIST%20OF%20UK%20POW%20CAMPS1.htm (http://www.islandfarm.fsnet.co.uk/LIST%20OF%20UK%20POW%20CAMPS1.htm)
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/upload/pdf/Prisoner_of_War_Camps.pdf (http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/upload/pdf/Prisoner_of_War_Camps.pdf)

Has anybody done any detecting on a former POW camp? I would love to hear what the finds consisted of. If like me you hadn't thought about it until now and are going to give it a go, keep us informed, I'm sure the finds would be quite interesting.
Does anyone know where exactly the New Inn camp was?

a list of camps, by county can be found here.

http://www.online-archaeology.co.uk/Articles/tabid/85/PageID/37/ArticleID/4/articleType/ArticleView/Default.aspx (http://www.online-archaeology.co.uk/Articles/tabid/85/PageID/37/ArticleID/4/articleType/ArticleView/Default.aspx)

Geoff the POW camp in New Inn was at the Polo Grounds which is now an industrial estate.

Just after WWII in late 1945  my mother was a young girl and lived in a prefab in Caroline Road New inn. She was walking past the POW camp when she had a dizzy spell and nearly passed out. She told me that 3 of the POW's helped her to her feet and escorted her home. My late grandmother told me she remembered it well and how polite and courteous the prisoners were. My mother told me they were Germans but I know a lot of Italians were held there.
.

Thanks Richy
 My Mother and aunts and uncles also used to say how gentlemanly the German POW's were.

WOW ... what a wierd coincidence.... i was only told about island farm prison camp this very week and then you put a post up ..... cool  8)

Stranger than that Doc, i was actually reading about it today, when i finished clicked on the site, and Geoff had put a link up, SPOOKY  :o :o :o :o
Ace  ;)

You may be interested to learn of the huge number of temporary hospitals that housed both allies and pow,s. I have four less than 10 miles away from me in various directions and only two miles away I have discovered a secret WW2 site but have yet to find out what it is for in such a remote place. The range of buildings are on a plateau and difficult to get to and are still on no map. Wonder how many more such sites exist.

hi paul

a lot of dummy airfields were created to try and confuse the bombers in order to get them to drop their bombs away from the city centres.

there was a specialised war dept that took great pride in creating illusions - their main contributions were dummy vehicles, aircraft etc, that could be inflated/deflated.
they created sites which also had replica buildings to the same dimensions as the genuine airfields etc

what u refer to could be one of those sites, -

cheers
alan

Yeah I had wondered that Alan but I really do think it was more to do with something going on underground as there are holes in the ground that have been concreted up and the buildings have almost triple thickness walls. I can,t see any attempt at a runway or dummy runway and it would have been impossible to take of and land any way. I really do get the feeling of something more sinister. The official secrets act 50 year rule has revealed nothing so I feel that whatever it was still had a function well on into the Cold War.

thanks for those links fellas.... ;).....thats a very interesting topic.......byron

Great post Geoff

I remember some of the building still standing at Island farm when i was a youngster my dad (God rest his soul)
took me around there i remember the art work and graffiti left by the Pow,s

When i was a young biker we,d sometimes take young Lady's over the firing Range in the Dunes at Newton Beach
It was virtually as the army left it them Ammo stores and offices tearooms ETC ETC.

I did read a piece on the web recently about the range and apparently when the Army left
live rounds were buried in pits in the dunes, :o

Wheres loads of spent ammo on Newton Ive never found anything live there

There one Building standing at Island farm its the 1st building you come to before the open(over grown) ground on the Bridgend, Porthcawl road

all the roads are still there so you can clearly make the camp out

hi paul

interesting scenario -- sometimes a letter to the local press asking for information about the site, often reveals a local person or two who worked on it.

could be an avenue to excplore

cheers