Slade Camp

Just east of Oxford, England, next to the busy Ring Road is a wooded area popular with local dog walkers. However, a strange series of paved roads and paths crisscross the forest here. And, if one looks closely at the undergrowth, they can see the remains of some buildings, mostly concrete foundations taken over by moss, trees, and leaves.

Despite appearances, the forest here is only 50 years old, and these buildings and pavement here are all that remains of Slade Camp, a former World War II army training center converted into housing after the war to accommodate displaced people.

During WWII, Slade Camp had been a sprawling base housing about 1500 soldiers and women in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, Home Guard, and Royal Army Medical Corps.

After the war, many returning local soldiers and new arrivals to the city got jobs at the nearby Cowley Works car factories. The need for housing was so great that the City Council took over the army camp to create temporary homes.

The army had built very basic open huts. But by the 1950s, the huts were converted into homes with kitchens, bathrooms, and sitting rooms. Street signs and street lights were erected, and Slade Camp started resembling a real suburb.

When the Eastern Bypass was built in 1959, cutting the site in half, life became quite difficult for those living beyond the busy road. They didn't have easy access to schools, health care, or public transport. But for another ten years, families continued to live there until the area was finally closed in 1970.

Since then nature has taken over, and trees have grown through the foundations of the old homes.

However, recently volunteers have been clearing the undergrowth and the traces of Oxford's forgotten suburb are beginning to emerge.

Today visitors can see the remains of an old garage where car repairs were done, the original ablution block that provided communal showers and toilets, the old officers' hut, and a water "tank" whose purpose is still unclear.