On this page (med-dept.com/etoHosp.php
), the 4th picture down, I've seen stated that this picture is in fact and oblique of the US Hospital at Stowell Park. Caption reads "Nissen-Hut 834-bed Station Hospital, located near Cheltenham, England, mid-July 1943"
However, I've looked at various aerial images of the site and I cannot find any match the for layout of the buildings in the oblique. An aerial photo can been seen in Google Maps at 51.805791°, -1.876625° if you roll-back the imagery to 1945.
Does anyone happen to know which hospital the picture on the US Medicat Research Centre site illustrates?
If it helps at all the 128th General Hospital was based just outside of the town of Warminster on the very western edge of Salisbury Plain, which was the area where many US army units were based prior to D-Day. Ranger
...I've seen stated that this picture is in fact and oblique of the US Hospital at Stowell Park...Does anyone happen to know which hospital the picture on the US Medicat Research Centre site illustrates?
It's certainly not Stowell Park, the VD/Isolation Wing in the background is the wrong way around, and in the wrong location.
It's not Ullenwood, Cirencester Park No.1 or No.2, Daglingworth or Gloucester EMS either, for the same reasons.
I'll expand my search area and see if anything turns up.
Paul, I'd appreciate that. BTW, looking at the aerial of Stowell, any insights as to what the different sections/buildings are? Do these things carry a common plan?
Wild guess but might that photo be Northwick Park, Blockley? it became a Polish resettlement camp after the war, most of the original building are still standing and being used by small business's, Stowell was built on a fairish slope.
EMS hospital sites are usually to a fairly similar modular design.
I've marked up the air photo of Stowell Park as a best-guess from knowledge of other sites:
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Reception, administration, operating theatres etc. are in the centre in green.
Covered walkways or corridors connect these to two banks of wards (red), with at least one small detached building containing a padded cell.
Further out is a seperate VD/Isolation Wing, comprising two long and one short connected huts, seen here in yellow.
Within all these was the service and maintenance buildings area, in blue.
Accommodation and facilities for the medical and suppost staff was dispersed around the hospital site (purple) and a sewage disposal site would be a short distance downwind (light blue).
The area around the wide gateway onto the road(between the green block and the lefthand red block is now a timber yard used by an old friend of mine, the site is now covered with trees, the building bases can still be seen running in tier's downhill from the road (bottom of the picture)
I've not had the pleasure of a "legit" look around the old site though as a wild and reckless teen I did stray from the public footpath once or twice and have a look. I do remember the remains of some huts. I certainly remember around 1990 that the gable end of the two vertical purple huts nearest the road on the left of your drawing were still there and visible if you peered over the wall.
The sewage farm is still there and I don't know if the three small buildings ENE of the sewage farm in the middle of the field are related but the bases were still visible in the field in the 90's.
Ricasso, if I can get over in September maybe you could chat to your mate and we could take a site visit and see what we can find?
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