Lynford

Name: Lynford
Reason for desertion: Military Training
Period of desertion: 1940s

In July 1942 about a thousand men,women and children were compulsorily evacuated from 17,500 acres to the north of Thetford. It is an area of heath,meres and light agricultural land forming a large part of the unique Norfolk- Suffolk Breckland landscape.

At the stroke of a War Office pen three villages Stanford, Tottington and West Tofts together with the parish of Sturston and parts of the parishes of Lynford,Ickburgh,Hillborough,Little Cressingham,Merton, Thompson, Wretham, Stow Bedon and Croxton were cleared to make way for an army training area where troops could manoeuvre using live ammunition.

Settlements that first peeped forth out of the neolithic gloom,survived the Norman conquest, the Black death,centuries of soil erosion, the Reformation, the Civil war and the Agricultural Revolution succumbed without too much fuss to Part IV of the Defence Regulations 1939.

A note on the Stanford Battle Area


Stanford Battle Area, also known as the Stanford Training Area (STANTA), is a British Army infantry training area situated in the English county of Norfolk. The area is approximately 30,000 acres (120 km2) in size, and is situated some 7 miles (11 km) north of the town of Thetford and 25 miles (40 km) south-west of the city of Norwich.

The area was originally established in 1942 when a battle training area was required. Military exercises were already known in the area; tanks had trained at Thetford in the First World War. The complete takeover involved the evacuation of the villages of Buckenham Tofts, Langford, Stanford, Sturston, Tottington and West Tofts.

The area was used during the run-up to the D-Day invasion and since then has hosted many exercises. A regular visitor is 16 Air Assault Brigade who hold their annual Gryphon exercises there..

Sources: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/62/a3258362.shtml