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The Common Room / Re: Latchmere House Borstal, Kingston Surrey
« on: Sunday 14 June 20 22:51 BST (UK) »
HI
there is lot of info regarding Latchmere House and depending which history period you want
do a google search for Latchmere House and have a click of images in top menu
there are quite a few images to see, inside and out over the years
the building its self is an old Manor House, may have been used as a convalescent home during WWI, and was abandoned for a while until the WWII when the War Office took it over for clandestine work, alien internees and prisoners of war were put through the doors to gain intelligence against the enemy and proved to be very useful, was part of the 'London Cage' which is worth a read, search for Camp 020 as well
The Camp also turned many of the earlier spies to double cross agents (one famous one is CARBO) and also much of the intelligence gained was used to catch notorious Nazi war criminals, can you imagine sifting through tons of hand typed intel, while WWII had ceased it continued for many until 1949
I guess as operations there ceased and moved over to Germany at end of war the Home Office took over using as a Borstal Camp, i think in later years it was used to accommodate full time prisoners who were transitioning between jail and free civilian life, then again abandoned
there are still some images as well as stories on line of the cells doorways etc, stories from staff who served there
Beverley Group took over to refurbish, most of the prison side has gone now to accommodate luxury housing, Latchmere is still there having been restored somewhat and converted into flats, but has retained much of its look, the biggest difference is there are no more nasty huge fences, so its a massive improvement and i think returned to a former splender
all work now finished
Berkley are now looking at converting Trent Park Estate
hope that helps
there is lot of info regarding Latchmere House and depending which history period you want
do a google search for Latchmere House and have a click of images in top menu
there are quite a few images to see, inside and out over the years
the building its self is an old Manor House, may have been used as a convalescent home during WWI, and was abandoned for a while until the WWII when the War Office took it over for clandestine work, alien internees and prisoners of war were put through the doors to gain intelligence against the enemy and proved to be very useful, was part of the 'London Cage' which is worth a read, search for Camp 020 as well
The Camp also turned many of the earlier spies to double cross agents (one famous one is CARBO) and also much of the intelligence gained was used to catch notorious Nazi war criminals, can you imagine sifting through tons of hand typed intel, while WWII had ceased it continued for many until 1949
I guess as operations there ceased and moved over to Germany at end of war the Home Office took over using as a Borstal Camp, i think in later years it was used to accommodate full time prisoners who were transitioning between jail and free civilian life, then again abandoned
there are still some images as well as stories on line of the cells doorways etc, stories from staff who served there
Beverley Group took over to refurbish, most of the prison side has gone now to accommodate luxury housing, Latchmere is still there having been restored somewhat and converted into flats, but has retained much of its look, the biggest difference is there are no more nasty huge fences, so its a massive improvement and i think returned to a former splender
all work now finished
Berkley are now looking at converting Trent Park Estate
hope that helps