Held at:	Voss Collection
Reference:	RS
Source:	Original documents
Title:	Digital Archive – Voss Collection: Photographs of Dorstone Prisoner of War Camp
Place name:	Golden Valley
Date:	1946

Description:

The Prisoner of War camp at Dorstone housed up to about 70 prisoners in wooden huts, with associated brick-built facilities that presumably housed a kitchen and canteen along with a washhouse and toilet facilities. The buildings in the main still survive, though they were in tumbledown condition in 2010 when most of the photographs below were taken. There is little evidence today of any substantial fencing or security arrangements around the site perimeter other than large double entrance gates which may not be original. This perhaps reflects the low security status of the camp, which appears to have been regarded more as a hostel whose inmates were allowed a significant degree of freedom after the surrender of Germany in 1945. Indeed, Dietrich Voss records in his biography that he walked unsupervised the two miles to and from his work, returning of his own volition to the camp each evening. Later he, like many other German POWs, was billeted on the farm where he was working and simply reported on occasion to the police when his papers need renewal.

The Dorstone camp was located about a mile west of the village centre on the Mynydd Brith road. No information is currently available on when it was built and first occupied, how it was manned and guarded by the British Authorities or when it closed. The camp does not feature on the Ordnance Survey 6 inch map series updated in 1945 [published 1952] but it was occupied in 1946, suggesting it may have been constructed late 1945 or early 1946 – although military installations were often omitted from maps in the post-war period; for example the WW2 Ordnance depot at Pontrilas opened in 1941 but did not feature in OS maps until the 1980s.

The remains of the Dorstone camp are now on private land.

 

Location of Dorstone Camp – courtesy Google Earth

 

Dorstone Camp Entrance from the lane

 

Dorstone Camp Buildings from the lane

 

Dorstone Camp buildings from the lane

 

Dorstone Camp Buildings from the lane

 

 

Dorstone Camp entrance – the gates may not be original.

 

 

Dorstone Camp Accommodation Hut

 

Dorstone Camp Accommodation hut

 

Dorstone Camp Accommodation hut

 

Dorstone Camp Accommodation hut

 

Dorstone Camp Building  

 

Dorstone Camp Building  

 

Dorstone Camp Building  

 

Dorstone Camp Building  

 

Stock photograph – WW2 prisoners of war in a typical accommodation hut

Observations:

Other documents and photographs relating to Dorstone Prisoner of War Camp and its occupants can be accessed from the Index page of the Voss Collection .