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Rudloe WW2 Remnants    Michael Rumsey    December 2020
Picture
Picture
The wartime remains of a post box above left and prefab house above right (courtesy Carol Payne)
Further to your article about The Boxfield Bungalows, three wartime bungalows still exist in Box parish and they are to be found on the Bradford Road B3109, Hawthorn to Chapel Plaister road, on the left opposite White Ennox Lane.[1] They are the surviving buildings from the Thorny Pits site. The Thorny Pits camp housed refugees from the Hungarian uprising in 1956. Originally the camp had been built for those employed in the underground factories at Spring Quarry during World War 2. I once met a lady in St. Ives who was working underground in Spring Quarry during the war. She said that after working a 12-hour shift in the factory, all they wanted to do was to go back to the hostels and sleep, day or night.  

​If you go to the Rudloe estate, you will find the wartime post box, built of brick with the GRVI sign, the last piece of what was the site 14 bungalow complex in the wartime ​!!
​Postscript
After World War I the creation of war memorials left a lasting visual epitaph to the consequences of war along with a significant cultural history of popular song, poetry and early photographs. But virtually nothing remains above ground of the horrors of the Second War, now all redeveloped. What were the Historic Buildings committee thinking by omitting Second World War items when they listed buildings and structures in the 1970s and 80s? At least subsequent listings have managed occasional references to remaining underground antiquities, such as the Olga Lehmann murals created in 1943. You can see photos of them at Corsham tunnels - A brief history (publishing.service.gov.uk). This is wonderful but, of course, it is not easily possible to see the originals. As a result the Rudloe remnants referred to by Michael are even more significant.
Reference
[1] These are located at Glenavon, Kingscote and Springfield (courtesy Paul Turner of Rudloe Scene).
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