Sheffield Council is selling the former POW camp at Lodge Moor (or 9.1 acres of it)- to be sold with a development clawback, ie, if planning permission is given the council get a stack of cash back. It is also being sold with restrictive covenants which are not detailed in the auction guide. Anyone have a CCRE Auction pack for the up coming auction at Don Valley?

There is a .PDF brochure at www.collierscre.com

There'll be plenty of subsidence what with all those escape tunnels.

Does anyone have any idea of the history of this POW camp?

But Am I correct in thinking its only the currently open grass area thats up for sale to the West of the trees and NOT the tree covered plantation area where all the actual ruins are? That part is much bigger than 9 acres....

It would make a great Paintball site. Any idea's of the amount it's gonig for roughly?

Originally posted by Disco_Cat
Does anyone have any idea of the history of this POW camp?

There's been a number of threads in the "history" section of the forum. A quick search should find them. Originally it was a training camp for WW1 soldiers and there's still some practise trenches in the surrounding hills. In WW2 it was used as a POW camp for mainly Italian soldiers and a few Germans. There are a few ruins left in the woods, concrete bases and the odd bit of brickwork etc.

ORIGINALLY it was a racecourse.

was it only POW's held or where internees detained their?

Originally posted by Tony
ORIGINALLY it was a racecourse.

Being a bit pedantic there ......

I'll stick to my version though. Originally the land it was built on may have been a race course (and before that an open moor and before that probably a tropical lagoon) but the question was about the POW. The POW was originally a WW1 camp. The billets, roads and associated buildings were constructed for the training of soldiers in the First World War.

It's not pedantic at all.

It was a racecourse, and the tall walls that you see all around the enclosure were built for the racecourse. There were grandstands, etc, so it's hardly irrelevant. It fell into disuse and was taken up by the Army for a training camp, and later became a POW camp, and after that was planted up.

The modern history started with the racecourse... your references to an undeveloped pre-history are daft.

NOW I'm being pedantic!

So looks like more new development of "executive" homes in Lodge Moor. Very close to the recent Hospital development site....that seems to have been very succesful...dont think many are left to buy now.

Shame....I love walking the dog there....wont be the same trailing through someones back garden!!

There's absolutely no chance of that - it's green belt, it's undeveloped, and I would expect it to be agricultural land.

Well looked at the pictures, but still no wiser as to exactly where it is.

Can someone enlighten me ? I know the area quite well so directions from say the Sportsmans?

You can find the site plan here (http://www.ccreauctions.co.uk/DesktopModules/ViewDocument.aspx?PropertyDoc=True&DocumentID=918).

Whilst the guide price is £24k, I would expect to maybe fetch 3 times that.

However, the chances of getting a consent on it are somewhere between zero and bugger all.

I am pleased that there is no chance of housing development here. In any case, it may be well known yet but their are numerous footpaths running thro the whole site which are regularly used by the public. The plantation wooded area itself is riddled with them, and I have been walking across this land for 29 years. I know it takes 50 yrs or something for a path to be deemed a public right of way? How does one make the Council aware of public footpaths running across this land?

The field in question is also very very badly drained....it would be very difficult to prepare this for construction work. It would be good to see it maybe used for crops, but with regard to the public footpaths running around the perimeter of the field. These are not marked on any map as such, but as stated above, this land has been in common public use as a right of way for well over 50 years I would say.

However looking at the map it appears that the wooded area itself is not part of the sale, which puts my mind at ease. The wooded area is a wonderful haven of wildlife, and contains a wide variety of snakes, squirrels, stoats, hares, rabbits, lizards, and in the swampy area around the middle, a good selection of toads of frogs. In the summer is is a major nesting site for many species of bird as well. Thank God this is not going to be flattened and turned into executive houses.......I have seen it happen in other areas where beautiful sites like this are flattened before anyone can protest loud enough to stop it.

And of course we must not forget that this is a site of local historic importance. There could well be a lot of relics from the old WW1 days in the subsoil of this site, and of course the ruined camp buildings themselves are part of a history that should not be dug up and buried.