One nice thing about living on Salisbury Plain is that over the Christmas period you can escape the family time and go look around Imber, However over the years Imber has become less of a derelict town and more of just empty shells of buildings. So this year I went to Copehill Down.
Copehill Down is a UK Ministry of Defence training facility located east of Imber, just south of Tilshead. Unlike Imber which was a village which was taken by the military, Copehill was never built to house people. Its sole purpose was to be used in training. It is what's known as a 'FIBUA' (Fighting In Built Up Areas) site for urban warfare and Close quarters battle training centre where exercises and tests are conducted.
The village was built in 1988 to resemble a German village in Bavaria, to provide troops with a simulated backdrop when training for operations in European theatres including the Cold War, the Balkans and Northern Ireland. Though over time the buildings have been changed and adapted for different situations.
In recent years the facility has been expanded to include a shanty town made up of cargo containers stacked and laid out in rows of tightly packed streets, to provide an additional training area that more closely resembles the Army's operational theatres in Operation Herrick and Operation Telic.
The shanty town is a nice addition to the village of Copehill Down.
St. Judes church - the patron saint of lost causes which I felt was rather apt. All the graves are fake.
The local school/mosque.
Thanks for looking.
History:
Copehill Down is a UK Ministry of Defence training facility located east of Imber, just south of Tilshead. Unlike Imber which was a village which was taken by the military, Copehill was never built to house people. Its sole purpose was to be used in training. It is what's known as a 'FIBUA' (Fighting In Built Up Areas) site for urban warfare and Close quarters battle training centre where exercises and tests are conducted.
The village was built in 1988 to resemble a German village in Bavaria, to provide troops with a simulated backdrop when training for operations in European theatres including the Cold War, the Balkans and Northern Ireland. Though over time the buildings have been changed and adapted for different situations.
In recent years the facility has been expanded to include a shanty town made up of cargo containers stacked and laid out in rows of tightly packed streets, to provide an additional training area that more closely resembles the Army's operational theatres in Operation Herrick and Operation Telic.
The shanty town is a nice addition to the village of Copehill Down.
St. Judes church - the patron saint of lost causes which I felt was rather apt. All the graves are fake.
The local school/mosque.
like exploring something abandoned, but knowing that it's been built like this...
