Deepcut
| Deepcut | |
| Surrey | |
|---|---|
 Deepcut Army base | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SU882604 |
| Location: | 51°18’43"N, -0°42’4"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 2,477 (2011) |
| Post town: | Camberley |
| Postcode: | GU16 |
| Dialling code: | 01276 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Surrey Heath |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Surrey Heath |
Deepcut is a village in western Surrey. It is named after the excavations required for the building of the Basingstoke Canal during the 1790s, although the village dates primarily from the early 20th century.
The nearest towns are Camberley, also in Surrey, three miles to the north, and Farnborough in Hampshire three miles to the west.
Since 1906, Deepcut has been the location of an army barracks, now called the Princess Royal Barracks.
History
Paleolithic flints have been found in the drift gravels on the hills, and a few neolithic implements in old Frimley parish generically. On the crest on which the community sits, near the southern end of Chobham Ridges, is a very large round barrow called Round Butt; south of it Mainstone Hill probably preserves the name of the Standing Stone, which formed a boundary mark of Chobham in the 12th century charter of Chertsey Abbey. William Stukeley's Itinerarium Curiosum records a Roman urn and coins as found here.[1]
In 1537 the abbey granted Ash with its other lands to Henry VIII. Edward VI of England, however, shortly after his accession granted it to Winchester College, which held the adjoining lands to the south, Ash Manor, in 1911.[1]
Deepcut is so named as the Basingstoke Canal was constructed through the area in a deep cutting below ground level, in the 18th Century.
Deepcut was part of the parish of Ash until 1866, when Frimley gained its own civil and ecclesiastical parishes. Due to non-agricultural soil and undulating landscape leading to little transport infrastructure few people lived here.
IN late 1903, Blackdown Camp, which became the Deepcut Barracks, was established by the Royal Engineers in late 1903 to accommodate artillery and infantry, centred on Winchester House, renamed Blackdown House when it was bought from the Pain family of Frimley Green by the War Office for military use.[2]
It is recorded of the area:
[Frimley] contains 7,800 acres, and measures 4 miles from north to south, and 3 miles from east to west. The parish covers the western side of Chobham Ridges, and extends down into the valley of the Blackwater, which bounds the county. The soil is, therefore, Bagshot sand and alluvium, with patches of gravel and large beds of peat. In the latter conifers and rhododendrons flourish...The Heatherside Nurseries, where are some of the finest Wellingtonias in England, may be taken as the typical industry of the neighbourhood, which is otherwise a residential district, or occupied by those connected with Aldershot, the Staff College, which is in the parish, and Sandhurst which lies just outside it. A very great part of the parish was open land, heather-covered, before the Inclosure Act of 1801. Much of it is still uncultivated. The main road from London to Southampton crosses the northern part of the parish. It is substantially on the line of the Roman road. On the top of the hill, near the Golden Farmer Inn, named after a notorious highwayman, the road to Farnham branches south from it, and passes through Old Frimley village[1]
Economy
Deepcut is a major training base of the British army employing 441 persons at the time of the 2011 census. Its trainee-level and logistics military community accounts for 31.4% of the engaged workforce.
The only other sectors of employment recorded in the 2001 census with more than 100 workers were 'Wholesale and Retail Trade; Repair of Motor Vehicles and Motor Cycles' and 'Human Health and Social Work and Activities'.
Village hall
The Deepcut Village Centre is the main community building. It hosts a number of local voluntary community groups and exercise classes.
Deepcut barrack scandals
From 1995 to 2002 a series of four deaths in seven years, each of gunshot wounds (Coroner's Inquest verdict: suicide in the case of Sean Benton, open verdicts in the three other cases), at the Princess Royal Barracks made headlines in most national newspapers and television news broadcasts, when an investigation into any possible links was being launched. The unusual frequency of deaths in one army facility prompted a series of investigations and findings of breach of duty of care in training contributing to the deaths and after many reviews and investigations an Army Board of Inquiry Report, 2009 confirmed there were breaches of care that contributed towards the opportunity and motive for such deaths and, accordingly, overturned the Coroners and produced open verdicts.
Deep Cut, a 2008 play by Philip Ralph, is based on families' and fellow trainees' accounts.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Deepcut) |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 A History of the County of Surrey - Volume 3 pp 340-344: Parishes: Ash (Victoria County History)
- ↑ "Walk around Deepcut Surrey". North Lane Green Steps. http://www.northlanegreensteps.co.uk/HealthyWalkArticles/deepcutWalk.html.