Stanford Training Area (STANTA), originally known as Stanford Battle Area, is a
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
training area situated in the
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
county of
Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...
. The area is approximately in size; it is some north of the town of
Thetford
Thetford is a market town and civil parish in the Breckland District of Norfolk, England. It is on the A11 road between Norwich and London, just east of Thetford Forest. The civil parish, covering an area of , in 2015 had a population of 24,340 ...
and south-west of the city of
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
. The site is run by the Mission Ready Training Centre (MRTC).
History
The area was originally established in 1942 when a battle training area was required and a 'Nazi village' established. Military exercises were already known in the area; tanks had deployed to Thetford in the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. The complete takeover involved the evacuation of the villages of
Buckenham Tofts
Buckenham Tofts (or Buckenham Parva; Little Buckenham) is a now deserted historic parish and manor in Norfolk, England, situated about 7 miles north of Thetford, and since 1942 situated within the Stanford Training Area, a 30,000-acre military t ...
,
Langford,
Stanford
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...
,
Sturston,
Tottington and
West Tofts
West Tofts is a deserted village located in civil parish of Lynford in the English county of Norfolk.
The village became deserted when it was taken over by the British Army during the Second World War as part of the Stanford Battle Area, an in ...
.
The area was used during the run-up to the
D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...
invasion and since then has hosted many exercises. In 2009 a village designed to replicate its
Afghan
Afghan may refer to:
*Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia
*Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity
** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...
equivalent was added to the Battle Area for the training of troops deployed in support of the
War in Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to:
*Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC)
*Muslim conquests of Afghanistan (637–709)
*Conquest of Afghanistan by the Mongol Empire (13th century), see als ...
. The site, built at a cost of £14 million, is state of the art and populated by Afghan nationals, ex-
Gurkha
The Gurkhas or Gorkhas (), with endonym Gorkhali ), are soldiers native to the Indian Subcontinent, chiefly residing within Nepal and some parts of Northeast India.
The Gurkha units are composed of Nepalis and Indian Gorkhas and are recruit ...
soldiers and amputee actors, who simulate the Afghan National Army, locals and wounded soldiers. The village includes houses, a market and a mosque. It also features a system that pumps out smells like rotten meat and sewage.
The facilities
The battle area includes four historic churches; the one at West Tofts was restored by
Pugin and a new "church" forms part of the specially constructed village of Eastmere. Eastmere was originally built to give soldiers experience of fighting on the northern European plains. There is a short landing strip at
As a live firing area, access is not allowed without special permission from the Army. In the main this is limited to a number of tours a year and compassionate grounds for former residents of the villages or their relatives.
The area forms part of the distinctive
Breckland landscape region, a
gorse
''Ulex'' (commonly known as gorse, furze, or whin) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. The genus comprises about 20 species of thorny evergreen shrubs in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae. The species are n ...
-covered
sand
Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of s ...
y
heath
A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler ...
which offers poor agricultural opportunities. Arguably, its use as a military training area has safeguarded a substantial archaeological landscape. Like many other military or restricted access areas in the UK such as
Bovington Camp, the buffer area around
Porton Down
Porton Down is a science park in Wiltshire, England, just northeast of the village of Porton, near Salisbury. It is home to two British government facilities: a site of the Ministry of Defence's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl ...
, and MOD areas on
Salisbury Plain
Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in the south western part of central southern England covering . It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies wi ...
, it is the home of a wealth of rare species of flora and fauna already lost in other parts of the country. Parts of the training area are designated
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...
(SSSI).
The battle area was used in the filming of many of the episodes of the comedy series ''
Dad's Army
''Dad's Army'' is a British television British sitcom, sitcom about the United Kingdom's Home Guard (United Kingdom), Home Guard during the World War II, Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft (TV producer), David Crof ...
''.
References
Sources
* Ordnance Survey (1999). ''OS Explorer Map 229 - Thetford in the Brecks''. .
* NorfolkChurches.co.uk.
Norfolk battle training area churches. Retrieved February 17, 2006.
* {{note, reb
''Telegraph''An Afghan village has been built by the Ministry of Defence in Thetford, Norfolk.Retrieved May 12, 2009.
External links
See also BBC WW2 Peoples War site Breckland Exodus-The Forced Evacuation of the Norfolk Battle Area 1942 Part 1See also BBC WW2 Peoples War site Breckland Exodus-The Forced Evacuation of the Norfolk Battle Area 1942 Part 2 by Conal O'DonnellViolets for Vera-the death of West Tofts School 1942 by Conal O'DonnellTouring the Stanta ghost villagesGoogle Earth view
Training establishments of the British Army
Geography of Norfolk
Military in Norfolk
Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Norfolk
Military training areas in the United Kingdom