Bonnytown, Prisoner-of-war Work Camp

A group of huts and other buildings comprising a former Prisoner-of-War work camp. The huts and buildings are bounded by a sandstone rubble wall and on the N by the stone wall which bounds the farmhouse garden. The buildings are all derelict, dilapidated and overgrown, and some have been demolished many years ago. The main entrance to the site lies in its NW corner.

The camp was used to house Italian prisoners-of-war, apprently assigned to undertake agricultural work in the area.

Scottish Urban Archaeological Trust (SUAT); MS/1751, 2,3, March 2003

NO51SW 61 centred 54527 12451

A small prisoner-of-war work camp is situated in an enclosure immediately to the SW of Bonnyton farmsteading. The huts are visible on a post-war vertical air photograph (106G/Scot/UK5, 4205, flown 14 April 1946).

The few remaining huts are being demolished during 2004.

Information from RCAHMS (DE) and Mr D Spiers, Senior Archaeologist, Fife Archaeological Unit, March 2004

NO 5452 1245 Survey in March 2004 of the derelict POW work camp (NO51SW 61) at Bonnytown Farm recorded a small cluster of huts and other buildings. No evidence of the Italian prisoners who worked here was found, but the pre-cast concrete huts were of interesting late wartime design. Various details were recorded of the huts, the latrines, the antique electrical system, and of an 18th-century doocot (NO51SW 3) which forms part of the group. After the war, the buildings passed to civilian use, being lived in by various people including a farm worker, and latterly by students.

Archive to be deposited in the NMRS.

Sponsor: M Kenneth Thom.

D P Bowler and C Smith 2004