Open Access

ARTICLE

Impact of Land Requisition for Military Training during World War II on Farming and the South Downs Landscape, England

by Nigel Walford^*

Department of Geography, Geology and the Environment, School of the Built Environment and Geogrphy, Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames, KT1 2EE, UK

* Corresponding Author: Nigel Walford. Email:

Revue Internationale de Géomatique 2024, 33, 445-464. https://doi.org/10.32604/rig.2024.054535

Received 30 May 2024; Accepted 30 September 2024; Issue published 25 October 2024

Abstract

The impact of World War II on the physical landscape of British towns and cities as a result of airborne assault is well known. However, less newsworthy but arguably no less significant is the impact of the war on agriculture and the countryside, especially in South-East England. This paper outlines the building of an historical Geographical Information System (GIS) from different data sources including the National Farm Survey (NFS), Luftwaffe and Royal Air Force (RAF) aerial photographs and basic topographic mapping for the South Downs in East and West Sussex. It explores the impact and legacy of World War II on the agricultural landscape of this area through both the ‘plough-up’ campaigns aimed at increasing agricultural production and the occupation of farm land for military training purposes. Farms surrounding an area where extensive tracts of land were taken over for military training and defensive purposes on the Downs close to Brighton and the county town of Lewes in East Sussex are the focus of attention illuminating the beneficial and disruptive impacts of the government’s drive to increase food output by bringing land into more productive use by means of a ‘plough-up’ campaign and using formerly agricultural land for military training. These changes contributed to the transformation of the region into “an arable monoculture” and the virtual disappearance of traditional sheep rearing in the post-war decades.

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Keywords

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