5 locations where The New Forest helped the war effort

The New Forest has played a part in wars throughout the centuries. There are still reminders of this in the forest today. This video visits five locations which are linked to activities in The New Forest during World War One and World War Two.

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0:00:00 Introduction
0:00:10 The Portuguese Fireplace
0:01:22 Commonwealth War Graves
0:03:55 Great Yew Tree
0:04:08 Brusher Mills
0:04:38 The Huff Duff
0:06:05 Observation Shelter
0:07:40 The Arrow

1 - The Portuguese Fireplace. What3words location: ///saints.choice.looms
During the First World War there was a huge demand for timber and The Canadian government sent over about 1500 lumberjacks who set up the first camp in this area.
As the war progressed, more men were needed in France and some of the Canadians went off to fight.
In 1917, an army unit from Portugal took their places at the sawmill, with a camp being built especially for them.
After the war, the camp was demolished but this fireplace was left standing as a memorial to the Portuguese and Canadian men who’d helped the war effort in The New Forest.

2 - Commonwealth War Graves. St Nicholas' Church, Brockenhurst, SO42 7UB
In 1915, Brockenhurst was chosen by the War Office to become a hospital centre to treat soldiers injured in the fighting in France.
Initially, the hospital was established south of the village for the Indian troops of the Lahore and Meerut Divisions.
Two local hotels, the Balmer Lawn and Forest Park Hotel, were also commandeered as part of the hospital. The road between these hotels is still called Meerut Rd.
This hospital was then replaced by No.1 New Zealand General Hospital in June 1916, after the Indian Divisions were replaced by ANZAC troops.
Over 21,000 casualties were treated in Brockenhurst but sadly more than a hundred died.
The war graves cemetery is in the graveyard of St Nicholas' church and contains 93 New Zealand graves, 1 Australian grave plus those of 3 Indian and 3 unidentified Belgian civilians.
Other Indian soldiers who died were cremated on one of two local pyre sites, in keeping with Hindu religious doctrine.
A display inside St Nicholas’ Church commemorates the activities at the hospitals during WW1.

3 - The Huff Duff. What3words location: ///warm.scratches.airliners
Along the south coast of England during WW2 there was an elaborate communications network set up to monitor aircraft movements.
This relied on a series of Direction Finding posts and it’s the remnants of one of these that can be seen at Ibsley.
These direction finding posts used high frequency radio bands so they came to be known as HF/DF or Huff Duffs.
Two or more Huff Duffs, 30 miles apart, could determine the direction and position of defensive aircraft from their radio transmissions. Using this information, defensive aircraft could be guided to intercept the enemy planes.
Each station was also equipped with a "Homer", a radio transmitter beacon to help Allied aircraft navigate their way home in bad weather.
The Huff Duff would have been a three-storey wooden tower about 30 feet high.
Today, we can see the blast wall of the Huff Duff, built to protect the Huff Duff tower from enemy bombs exploding nearby.
Nearby can be seen the foundations of the crew’s living quarters and the air raid shelter.

4 - Observation Shelter. What3words location: ///together.reform.unsploiled
During WW2 the whole of the Ashley Walk valley was used as a bombing range. It was used to test new weapons and to train bomber crews.
Targets of various sorts were set up and a number of observation shelters were built to allow senior military and civilian personnel to watch the trials in relative safety
There is one observation shelter in the valley still standing.
Inside the shelter, there is an information board with details about the bombing range and what happened here during WW2.

5 - The Arrow. What3words location: ///defends.senses.satin
The concrete arrow at Ashley Walk was used to point the bomber crews towards their target, at the bottom of the valley.
The arrow and the target were both illuminated at night, to enable night bombing training.
The target is no longer to be seen down in the valley but the arrow is certainly still there.
It’s very impressive!

Attribution:
'Brusher Mills' picture
Brian Pike, environmental sand artist.(The sand painter), CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons