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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: leamingtonian on Wednesday 12 June 24 22:07 BST (UK)
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Help required in trying to find any information on THE STARETON GUN SITE, NR STONELEIGH, WARWICKSHIRE.
My parents lived there between 1944 to 1949 and I am trying to find out what it was and why it was there. Any help greatly appreciated/
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I am making a guess at this because I have come across a similar thing in Yorkshire. Have a look at this map, towards the eastern side, around grid ref 3472. The map dates from pre-1930 with provisional revision up to 1950 (see bottom margin).
https://maps.nls.uk/view/189236478
On this style of OS revision new buildings were added as hollow, unshaded blocks. There is a large area of these, which suggests some kind of military camp, set out in Stoneleigh Park.
The two examples I have looked at were smaller than this. They were apparently used to accomodate army personnel who were manning scattered AA gun emplacements surrounding an industrial area so this one may relate to the Coventry/Birmingham area. Perhaps it was a main centre for AA admin. and included workshops.
After the war they were abandoned, and people who had been made homeless during the war just moved in. The local authorities had no accomodation in which to re-house them, so they were used for some years. In one case I have seen documents showing that an urban district council managed the accomodation as council housing for ten years until they had some alternative to offer.
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See my previous post about Yorkshire:
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=813753.msg7506910#msg7506910
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MollyC's map shows "Deer Keeper's Lodge" -
From from the Coventry Standard, 12 Jun 1848
Note - trouble attaching snippet!!
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Snippet
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Leamington Spa Courier, 13 Sep 1946
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At Rawmarsh, Yorkshire, the UDC installed electric cookers, which went against their policy of gas cookers in council houses, but there was no gas main to Red Ash Hill Camp which they were trying to deal with.
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Many thanks for the info; really interesting. Squatters!!!
According to various birth & death certificates my parents were living in Waverley Rd Leamington Spa, which was the home of my mum's father, and then on 4th November living at the Stareton Gun Site. Further info says that there was an American Hospital on the site or nearby confirming what may have happened, homeless etc. Were they told by my mum's father that he didn't want them living with him anymore or were they advised to 'squat' in Stareton where they had a good chance of being found a home by the local council? We will never know although my father's National Registration Identity Card shows him living at Stareton in October 1946 & in one of the new council houses built in Leamington in Jan 1949. It looks as if the advice given was good advice.
A couple of articles relating to my father, William Richard Gough b 15/01/1920 & living in Waverley Rd Leamington Spa, appeared in the Coventry Evening Telegraph on 24 August 1943 & in the Warwick & Warwickshire Advertiser on 27 Aug 1943. I don't have access to Findmypast or the BNA so if anyone has access to these newspaper articles I would be eternally grateful.
Meanwhile thanks again for your help.
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With a free FindMyPast account you can buy individual records. The newspaper pages mentioned will cost 50p each.
https://www.findmypast.co.uk/help/articles/4405440232977-what-are-findmypast-micropayments-
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I think I can help. Please email me through the contacts list at www.goff-gough.com. Kind regards, Phil