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Hankley Common

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Coordinates: 51°09′50″N 0°44′02″W / 51.164°N 0.734°W / 51.164; -0.734
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Hankley Common
Map
TypeNature reserve
LocationElstead, Surrey
OS gridSU886413
Area560 hectares (1,400 acres)
Managed bySurrey Wildlife Trust

Hankley Common is a 560-hectare (1,400-acre) nature reserve and filming location in the south-west of Elstead in Surrey. It is owned by the Ministry of Defence. The site is part of the Thursley, Hankley and Frensham Commons Special Area of Conservation,[1] Special Protection Area[2] and Site of Special Scientific Interest.[3] The site has woodland and lowland heath with heather and gorse. Birds include nightjars and Dartford warblers and there are other fauna such as adders and common lizards.[4]

Access is subject to the needs of military training, with frequent training exercises and multiple buildings present.

Atlantic Wall reconstruction

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Churchill "Double Onion" tank in World War 2. The tank was driven against a wall, the framework was lowered to the ground against the wall. The tank then backed up a 100 feet laying out an electric detonating cable. The explosives were then detonated by the tank driver.

D-Day training sites were created in Britain in order to practise for Operation Overlord, the invasion of Northern France by allied forces in 1944. In 1943, in an area of the Common known as the Lion's Mouth, Canadian troops constructed a replica of a section of the Atlantic Wall. It is constructed from reinforced concrete and was used as a major training aid to develop and practise techniques to breach the defences of the French coast prior to the D-Day landings.[5] The wall is about 100 m (330 ft) long, 3 m (9.8 ft) high by 3.5 m (11 ft) wide. It is divided into two sections between which there were originally steel gates. Nearby are other obstacles such as dragon's teeth, reinforced concrete blocks and lengths of railway track set in concrete and with wire entanglements.

Many of the relics show signs of live weapons training and the main wall has two breaches caused by demolition devices including the Double Onion: a specialised demolition vehicle, one of Hobart's Funnies, based on the Churchill tank.[6][7] The reinforced concrete was made with rebars varying from 10 to 20 mm (0.39 to 0.79 in) thick. Over the years the wall has become colonised by alkaline-loving lichens, mosses, ferns and other plants because the concrete provides the lime-based substrate that these species require and which is found nowhere else in the locality. They present an unusual range of plants to be found in an expanse of acid heathland. The preservation of the Wall is managed by Army Training Estates with the assistance of the MOD Hankley Conservation Group.

Golf course

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Hankley Common is home to Hankley Common Golf Club which opened in 1897 with nine holes and was expanded to eighteen holes in 1922. [8]

Film and television

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Hankley Common has been used in Hollywood blockbuster movies and TV shows.

  • In April 2019, filming began on the Common for the First World War epic 1917, in which it represented a French battlefield.[12]

Bossom air crash

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In July 1932 a Puss Moth aircraft carrying Mrs. Emily Bossom, Bruce Bossom, the American wife and eldest son of politician Alfred Bossom, and Count Otto Erbach-Fürstenau, broke up in mid-air. At least two of the occupants fell to the ground on Hankley Common. The sites where they fell are marked with memorial stones.[20][21][22]

The Wigwam Murder

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Main article: August Sangret

In September 1942, Hankley Common was the site of a murder. The victim was a woman who was living rough in a crude shelter made of tree branches in the manner of a wigwam, thus leading her to become known among locals as "the Wigwam Girl" and the murder case itself to be known as "the Wigwam Murder".[23] She was eventually identified as 19-year-old Joan Pearl Wolfe.[24]

2022 wildfires

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In July 2022, during the 2022 United Kingdom heat wave, a series of wildfires took place in the common, each of which was described by the fire services as a "major incident". The smoke was strong enough to have been seen on the runway of Heathrow Airport as well as in Guildford. During the largest blaze of 24 July, Surrey Fire and Rescue urged nearby residents to keep windows closed and pets inside until the blaze was extinguished by the 19 vehicles in attendance.[25] Several nearby residents were evacuated until the fire was brought under control.[26] To protect the structures on the common and the valued training area, the MoD provided a contracted Eurocopter AS350 for aerial firefighting operations.[27] Water for this was collected from nearby Frensham Great Pond, and this marked the first use of aerial firefighting equipment in Surrey. The fires combined destroyed almost 70 hectares of the site and caused extreme damage to protected habitats.[28]

Notes

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  1. ^ "Designated Sites View: Thursley, Ash, Pirbright & Chobham". Special Areas of Conservation. Natural England. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  2. ^ "Designated Sites View: Thursley, Hankley & Frensham Commons". Special Protection Areas. Natural England. Retrieved 28 October 2018.
  3. ^ "Designated Sites View: Thursley, Hankley & Frensham Commons". Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Retrieved 13 November 2018.
  4. ^ "Hankley Common". Surrey Wildlife Trust. Archived from the original on 24 October 2018. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  5. ^ Image of Hankley Common dedication plaque.
  6. ^ Hankley Common Trials – WO 195/4238. The Catalogue, The National Archives
  7. ^ http://www.shepheard.plus.com/atlanticwall/ A Sea Wall in Surrey?.
  8. ^ "Hankley common Golf Club". Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  9. ^ "The World is Not Enough (1999) – as the Countdown Begins for the New Millienum There is Still One Number You Can Always Count on". Archived from the original on 27 September 2006. Retrieved 21 September 2008.
  10. ^ Morris, Jennifer (21 February 2014). "Inverness comes to Hankley Common for Macbeth filming". getsurrey. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  11. ^ The King's Man (2020) – IMDb, retrieved 23 June 2020
  12. ^ Smurthwaite, Tom; Fleming, Eleanor (16 January 2020). "The Surrey location where Oscar nominated 1917 movie was filmed". getsurrey. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  13. ^ McKeon, Christopher (24 July 2019). "Black Widow filming on Hankley Common faces planning law problems". getsurrey. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  14. ^ McKeon, Christopher (24 July 2019). "Black Widow filming on Hankley Common faces planning law problems". SurreyLive. Retrieved 16 August 2020.
  15. ^ "Hankley Common". Doctor Who – The Locations Guide. Retrieved 17 September 2013.
  16. ^ "Blackadder filming on Hankley Common". Blackadder Hall. Archived from the original on 5 October 2006. Retrieved 28 October 2006.
  17. ^ Smurthwaite, Tom; Fleming, Eleanor (16 January 2020). "The Surrey location where Oscar nominated 1917 movie was filmed". SurreyLive. Retrieved 5 August 2023.
  18. ^ Shrestha, Naman (4 August 2022). "Where is Netflix's The Sandman Filmed?". The Cinemaholic. Retrieved 12 September 2022.
  19. ^ Clarke, Chloe (16 April 2022). "Surrey beauty spot turned into battle scene as filming takes place". SurreyLive. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
  20. ^ "Geograph:: Memorial to Bruce Bayne Bossom © gordon cc-by-sa/2.0".
  21. ^ "Report on de Havilland DH.80 Puss Moth crash on Hankley Common, 27 July 1932". Archived from the original on 4 February 2019. Retrieved 3 February 2019.
  22. ^ "Report on de Havilland DH.80 Puss Moth crash on Hankley Common, 27 July 1932". Archived from the original on 4 February 2019. Retrieved 3 February 2019.
  23. ^ "Policing Wars and Consequences 1902–1950". 16 April 2020. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 16 April 2020 – via open.ac.uk.
  24. ^ Murder on Hankley Common. 1995. p. 1928. ISBN 978-1-85875-022-4. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
  25. ^ "Surrey wildfire: Major incident declared as blaze breaks out at Hankley Common". 24 July 2022 – via The Mirror.
  26. ^ Bradshaw, David (26 July 2022). "Evacuated residents return home after Hankley Common fire". SurreyLive. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
  27. ^ SCC (28 July 2022). "Fire, Police and MOD partners 'water bomb' Hankley Common wildfire". Surrey News. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
  28. ^ "Update on the Hankley Common fire". 28 July 2022. Retrieved 4 August 2023.

References

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  • The National Archives – repository of UK government records.
  • WW2 People's War is an online archive of wartime memories contributed by members of the public and gathered by the BBC. The archive can be found at http://bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar.
  • Lunn, Arthur (6 April 2007). "Murdered in the heroes 'drop' zone". The News.

Further reading

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  • William Foot. The Battlefields That Nearly Were: Defended England, 1940. Stroud: Tempus Publishing, 2006. ISBN 0-7524-3849-2.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hankley Common.
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51°09′50″N 0°44′02″W / 51.164°N 0.734°W / 51.164; -0.734

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