St Giles
St Giles' church, east of Warminster in Wiltshire, is one of the more difficult places to reach in England. The roads to get there aren't bad, the paths aren't steep and there are, as you'll see if you zoom in, plenty people around. So what's the problem?
Well, it's in the middle of Salisbury Plain, which is an army training ground. There are regular exercises held here and I believe it's a live firing range; there are certainly a number of notices warning that straying from the path is inadvisable, possibly terminally so.
A few times each year the army stop shooting and let the public in and it was on one such day that I visited. Imber, the village for which this was the church, was evacuated in 1943 so the army could use the area. I was very fortunate when I was there to meet a 98yo chap who lived through this and could remember a lot of stories about it.
Fascinating spot. If you get the chance to go you should take it.
St Giles
St Giles' church, east of Warminster in Wiltshire, is one of the more difficult places to reach in England. The roads to get there aren't bad, the paths aren't steep and there are, as you'll see if you zoom in, plenty people around. So what's the problem?
Well, it's in the middle of Salisbury Plain, which is an army training ground. There are regular exercises held here and I believe it's a live firing range; there are certainly a number of notices warning that straying from the path is inadvisable, possibly terminally so.
A few times each year the army stop shooting and let the public in and it was on one such day that I visited. Imber, the village for which this was the church, was evacuated in 1943 so the army could use the area. I was very fortunate when I was there to meet a 98yo chap who lived through this and could remember a lot of stories about it.
Fascinating spot. If you get the chance to go you should take it.