Project is searching for untold memories of Kington Camp

4:11pm Thursday 1st May 2008

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FOR many rural communities life changed dramatically during the Second World War – and not least in Kington.

With US troops descending on the border town to recuperate at its Hergest Camp military hospital, and displaced members of the Polish Resettlement Corps and their families seeking refuge as the war ended, Kington’s history was changed forever.

Since 2006, the Kington Camp community project has been working to bring those memories back to life – and is calling for anyone with untold memories to help out.

Judith Gardner, who is working on the project, said: “It’s an important heritage site for Kington and an incredible collective memory that we are trying to piece together.

“We were talking about it and realised a great many people who are around now remember the camp.” So far, researchers have produced a website with an interactive map of the military hospital, audio clips from locals who remember the camp and findings from school pupils involved in the project.

But information surrounding the site’s post-war days as a Polish displacement camp and as housing created by families needing accommodation before the 1960s has been less forthcoming.

Ms Gardner explained: “We are particularly keen to learn about the experiences of Poles based at the camp, some of whom we understand moved on to Foxley Camp.” A permanent exhibition commemorating the now mostly derelict camp at Kington Museum, open during the summer months, is also currently being made accessible to the blind and partially sighted.

Future plans include possibly restoring part of the site to its former glory while an oral history book detailing people’s memories of the camp, and wartime and post-war Kington in general, is due later this year.

“There is still quite a lot to be seen – maybe it would be possible to preserve one of the buildings as a ward by putting it back the way it was then,” Ms Gardner added.

Anyone who can help or who would like more information on the project can visit kingtoncamp.co.uk, e-mail info@kingtoncamp.co.uk or call 01544 230178.