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I am currently investigating some soldiers who were members of the Hertfordshire Regiment (Territorial Force) in the Waltham Cross area prior to the outbreak of war and fought through the war. This post card shows an army camp at Eastbourne and I suspect that it shows the Herts Regiment at their summer camp shortly in the early 1920s - (not 1920 when they were at Yarmouth). Does anyone know which year (if any) the Hertfordshire Regiment had a camp at Eastbourne.
Peter Longstaff-Tyrrell, of the Eastbourne Local History Society, has kindly identified the location of the camp site as being an area to the south of Eastbourne, towards Beachy Head, called Whitbread Hole. Looking at the map the location fits the picture perfectly, with Eastbourne pier being faintly visible along the coast, and from the contours it should be relatively easy to identify the location of the photographer within 100 yards or even better.. In addition the area was definitely used for territorial training before the war as the document he sent records:
ReplyDelete"The Surrey Brigade Camp, July 1912. More than 3,000 men of the Surrey Infantry Brigade and Army Service Corps (Territorial Army) arrived at Eastbourne by special train and set up camp for a week at Whitbread Hollow above Meads. It is believed to be the largest concentration of troops on the South coast since the days of the threatened Napoleonic invasion. Fresh water was laid on from Eastbourn Waterworks at Friston."
This sounds an ideal spot for an army training camp and so the remaining question is when (or if) the East Anglian Division, which includes the Hertfordshire Regiment, used it.