PoW Camp 556 Bucknowle House

This site is now Bucknowle Farm, House and Lodge with camping offered at the farm. The House is currently empty

Location

Bucknowle House, Bucknowle, Wareham BH20 5PQ

Description

Site Visits

June 2019

Material

DSLR and Drone Photo
UK Foreign Office Inspection Report
UK War Office Diary

This site is in three parts: Bucknowle Farm, House and Lodge. The farm does camping and I camped there for the night and talked to the lady that runs the farm. She told me that the house which is currently empty was used by the military during the war and that the previous owners may have been able to tell me more, but they have now gone. On the farm itself there is a war time prefab shed. However, it was placed there in the 1950’s.

There is no direct evidence or traces of war time use to be seen on the site. However, in flying the drone over the site marking can clearly be seen in the field below the main house that show the presence of buildings in what could have been hut bases. This would be consistent with the usage of the main building plus prefab huts in the grounds typical of such sites

On returning from my trip to this site I discussed the sites location with another researcher P Woods who indicated that the camp was at West Bucknowle Lodge with the PoW Staff staying at another farm. This does not quite tie in with the name of the camp and the physical distance between the site of the lodge and the proposed guard accommodation. So, until such time as some form of evidence is produced then these images stand as the most likely location rather than a fully confirmed location


Camera Images of a site close the former PoW Camp 556 Bucknowle House