Tower and Town, December 2017

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Soldier Training At Bulford Camp

Bulford Camp (close to the village of Bulford) is a large army camp on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. It was established in 1897 and even though the camp was very small to start with, it grew.

In the camp the section called Sling Camp had corporals in it from Australia and New Zealand. The Bulford Kiwi was created by the corporals, it was a mural on the hill. Corporals started to disobey orders when the camp became the site of the Battle of Bulford after the war had finished.

During the years between the wars some barracks were built and in 1931 new names were given to them. Carter Barracks was a camp built in 1939-40 and destroyed in 1978.

Today, Bulford camp is split up into two sites because they are separated by the Marlborough Road. The Kiwi Barracks and the Picton Barracks were on the eastern side of Bulford Camp and on the western side there is Ward Barracks and the Special Investigation Branch is built on Champion Lines which is also on the western side of the camp.

From 1906 to 1963 there was a railway going from Amesbury to Bulford Camp. The railway took people and goods back and forth and in 1952 it stopped taking people although it kept taking goods until 1963.

James Roberts