Feldom and Catterick Training Area

(Photo above is of Schermuly, or parachute flares, in use during a recent exercise on Catterick Training Area.)

Today, Marske is close to the extensive MoD training areas associated with Catterick, but it was not always this way. The establishment and expansion of these areas during the twentieth century has had a major impact on the fortunes of the Marske Estate, and a number of farms in the parish. 

In 1908 Lord Baden-Powell was tasked by Lord Kitchener of the War Office to find the site for a new military camp.  By 1914 a site was chosen in what was then open countryside near the villages of Hipswell, Colbourn and Scotton south of Richmond.  The land initially extended about 6km to the west of the current centre of Catterick Garrison towards Downholme.  At the time many locally had thought the tents and huts of soldier accommodation would be returned to their original owners after the Great War, whereas Lord Kitchener in 1914 had mused that the camp could become a permanent base of the British Army: an “Aldershot of the North”¹.

Barracks had been quickly assembled at the start of the Great War.  By 1915 the area accommodated 40,000 soldiers – in rows of tents and huts called “Lines” – a label that is preserved today in the names of many parts of the base.  By 1924, after a period of uncertainty immediately after the war, Government had decided that a permanent base should be established at Catterick.  Public rights of way, for example, were removed under the Defence of the Realm Act. 

Once established the War Office wanted to further expand the Catterick Training Area, and at this point its history became more directly entwined with that of Marske.  In 1925² the War Office took steps to compulsorily purchase 2406 acres (around 10 sq km) of land belonging to the Marske Estate (Hutton family) in the areas around Walburn Hall and Stainton, and what is now Wathgill Camp.  The Hutton family were not year-round residents of Marske Hall, and appear to have been slow to act on their interests, but protested very strongly about these plans.  In 1926 Captain D’Arcy Hutton challenged the War Office in court over the possession of their land and the related compensation.  Newspaper reports² of the trial reflect concerns that artillerymen roaming the land were spoiling the shooting of grouse on August the 12^th – “a most sacred day”.  These claims were met by laughter in the court room.  The court case was lost and Wathgill Camp has remained part of the military training area ever since. 

.. .. artillerymen roaming the land were spoiling the shooting of grouse on August the 12th – ” a most sacred day” ..

Fifteen years later the Second World War again brought changes to the requirements of Catterick.  In the early years of the war the War Office identified the need for more land, and notices were served on the Hutton Estate and its tenant farmers³.  This time around 6000 acres of land northeast of Marske at Feldom was chosen¹.  The farmers at Cordilleras Farm, and at Feldom itself, were given around 2 months’ notice to sell up and move.  Many of these farmers had farmed this land for generations.  Hastily arranged auctions of agricultural machinery and stock must have been heart-breaking for the families concerned⁴.  The occupants of Feldom attended church in Marske, and would have also used the school, post office and smithy.  The footpath that they would have taken to church is now rudely truncated by the Ministry of Defence boundary a kilometre north of the Clapgate road.

.. they were given just two months to sell up and move on ..

Feldom has been in active use ever since. In the 1960s Canberra reconnaissance aircraft used to fly over at very low altitude in training missions, scaring the occupants of Cordilleras Farm (which then had tenants), as well as the sheep population⁵. Mortars and small arms fire are common background noises in and around Marske.

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1. Tanner, Nancy and Abramson, Phil (Eds). 2014. From Farms to Arms.  History of Catterick Military Training Area.[↩][↩]
2. Yorkshire Post. 4 December 1926. Catterick Camp’s Extension. Viewed at The British Newspaper Archive (BNA website).[↩][↩]
3. Newcastle Journal. 18 March 1940. Tenants Must Leave Swaledale Farms. Viewed at The British Newspaper Archive (BNA website).[↩]
4. Yorkshire Post. 6 April 1940. Advertisement relating to sales at Cordilleras Farm, Marske, near Richmond. Viewed at The British Newspaper Archive (BNA website).[↩]
5. Local contributor 6:  Notes following conversation.  2023.[↩]
6. Rees, David Morgan. 2000. In the Palm of the Dale. a portrait in words and pictures of a Yorkshire Dales village.[↩]