Post by Dave on Jun 8, 2009 16:54:32 GMT
Ilford Park Stover Newton Abbot
After reading our D-Day thread I starting thinking a bit about the war and during those thoughts, a memory came flooding back to me, I had to make a delivery about eight years ago for a healthcare company to a place I knew about but had never been past the gate. What I saw was a complete surprise to me and as I drove to the building I had to go too, it was a very eerie feeling going past the buildings on route.
Living on Buckland Est. I went to Milber Primary School and in those days the kids you went to school with were the same ones you played with after school and during the holidays. Kids went to the closest school unlike today’s mad system where parents drive miles and miles past schools their kids could be pupils at, only to get to some chosen school.
So when I went to the big boys school (Highweek Secondary Modern) for the first time I had a few class mates with very long names and ones I could never pronounce. The reason being that they were from the polish camp at Stover, known as Ildford Park.
Ilford Park Polish Home ,is located near Newton Abbot, Devon and opened in 1948. It was founded under the 1947 Polish Resettlement act to house some of the 200,000 exiled Poles who had fought alongside the Allies in World War II. And was a self-contained community.
Having never been inside the main gate before I had no idea that a new purpose-built care home had been built and opened on the 16th December, 1992. to house the remaining Poles who still lived at the camp, as you would imagine they are very old now. I do believe the home is now open to Non- poles but it is still administered by the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency an Executive Agency of the Ministry of Defence.
So I drove through the gate along a straight road and soon realised that the former camp had been completely abandoned and while all the buildings were still standing, they were getting covered in the growing vegetation. I drove on until I came to a right hand bend in the road and past more rows of buildings before I came to the new home that has been built on the site.
During today I was thinking what might become of the site, being the dreamer I can be I saw its future as a tourist attraction, fully restored and being a place one could go to and really feel the history and get a feeling how hard the camp would have been to live on in its very early years.
The camp did have some improvements made to it in the 70’s, heating was put in and some proper ceilings, but what it always had was a real and proper community feel for all the polish people who lived there.
Well looking for a few pictures to put on this thread I found what will become of the old camp and while I understand time does not stand still and developments will take place; I do feel it will be a shame a part of history will be lost under some hotel etc.
Good times in the old camp
The new purpose-built care home
The old camp as it is today.
The future of the site, the plans and a map that shows the site as it is now.
After reading our D-Day thread I starting thinking a bit about the war and during those thoughts, a memory came flooding back to me, I had to make a delivery about eight years ago for a healthcare company to a place I knew about but had never been past the gate. What I saw was a complete surprise to me and as I drove to the building I had to go too, it was a very eerie feeling going past the buildings on route.
Living on Buckland Est. I went to Milber Primary School and in those days the kids you went to school with were the same ones you played with after school and during the holidays. Kids went to the closest school unlike today’s mad system where parents drive miles and miles past schools their kids could be pupils at, only to get to some chosen school.
So when I went to the big boys school (Highweek Secondary Modern) for the first time I had a few class mates with very long names and ones I could never pronounce. The reason being that they were from the polish camp at Stover, known as Ildford Park.
Ilford Park Polish Home ,is located near Newton Abbot, Devon and opened in 1948. It was founded under the 1947 Polish Resettlement act to house some of the 200,000 exiled Poles who had fought alongside the Allies in World War II. And was a self-contained community.
Having never been inside the main gate before I had no idea that a new purpose-built care home had been built and opened on the 16th December, 1992. to house the remaining Poles who still lived at the camp, as you would imagine they are very old now. I do believe the home is now open to Non- poles but it is still administered by the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency an Executive Agency of the Ministry of Defence.
So I drove through the gate along a straight road and soon realised that the former camp had been completely abandoned and while all the buildings were still standing, they were getting covered in the growing vegetation. I drove on until I came to a right hand bend in the road and past more rows of buildings before I came to the new home that has been built on the site.
During today I was thinking what might become of the site, being the dreamer I can be I saw its future as a tourist attraction, fully restored and being a place one could go to and really feel the history and get a feeling how hard the camp would have been to live on in its very early years.
The camp did have some improvements made to it in the 70’s, heating was put in and some proper ceilings, but what it always had was a real and proper community feel for all the polish people who lived there.
Well looking for a few pictures to put on this thread I found what will become of the old camp and while I understand time does not stand still and developments will take place; I do feel it will be a shame a part of history will be lost under some hotel etc.
Good times in the old camp
The new purpose-built care home
The old camp as it is today.
The future of the site, the plans and a map that shows the site as it is now.
That's sad seeing the dereliction of the old Stover Camp although uplifting to view the new home.