Note

Date 25 April 1996 - March 2006

Event ID 935324

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/935324

A detailed plan of Stobs Prisoners-of-war Camp from 1917 is held in the Wilton House Museum, Hawick. It shows that the camp consisted of some 80 huts and a 150 bed hospital and could accommodate 4,500 men. It was built at a cost of £46,500 and was grouped into four 'camps' lettered from A to D with the hospital at the SW end. The camp also incorporated a light-railway system, YMCA (outside the fence), stores, workshops and a post-office.

The area had been used by the Territorial Army for some years before the First World War and was used by the army until the early 1950s, the camps are still depicted on the latest OS maps (OS 1:10000 map, 1982).

Information from RCAHMS (DE) 25 April 1996

The military camp at Stobs is situated about 600m SW of the now closed Stobs railway station.

The footings of the camp are still extant within in an area occupying about 22.36 hectares and the training area to the SW and S as far as Penchrise Pen (NT 4908 0622).

The First World War Prisoner- of- War Hospital of six huts is at NT 49675 09216 and aerial phtographs taken in 1991 (J Dent, The Scottish Borders Council) show that there had been additional huts added during the Second World War.

The military training area, camp and prisoner-of-war camp is visible on vertical air photographs (106G/Scot/UK 4333201 3208 and 4200-4203, flown 24 June 1945).

The original pre-First World War camp is depicted on 2nd edition OS 6-inch map (Roxburghshire, sheet, 1902, sheet xxxii).

The military training camp opened in 1902 after the Government purchased the land from the Elliots of Stobs Castle. During the First World War an additional hundred huts were built upslope of the main camp to house German prisoners-of-war and German nationals resident in the United Kingdom. Further Nissen huts were before and during the Second World War for prisoners-of-war. Following the cessation of hostilities in 1945 the camp housed some Polish Troops and by 1959 all military connections had been severed (A Wham 2004).

Information from RCAHMS (DE), March 2006