This former PoW was sited with a large Victorian Building and adjacent wooden hostel used by the church and registered as “The First Conference Estates Ltd”. This site was used by the military in both the 1^st and 2^nd world wars.

Today the Hayes remains a Church Conference centre operated by the Christian Conference Trust (CCT).

I 1^st visited this site in August 2019 and was told that they had maintained an extensive collection of material along with a small number of objects made by the PoWs. I was also informed by the staff at the conference centre that there had been a number of return visited by former PoW, also that the site had the remains of an escape Tunnel dug and used by a number of PoWs to escape.

Following an invitation, I return to the Hayes in February 2020 and given access to and allowed to photograph some of the information and documents that they had kept regarding the sites history as a PoW Camp. This includes such mundane items as the military rental agreements and correspondence through to the receipt for biscuits for the Officers Mess (Guard Force).

One of the letters was intriguing in discussing the loss of some chairs; the escape tunnel which is still in the grounds was built and reinforced using chair legs