In the build up to the Normandy landings Marchington was used as a staging post for US troops newly arrived in the UK from Liverpool. The camp may also have included a Replacement Depot where servicemen would be billeted pending assignment to a unit. Between 1943 and 1945 both the 8th and 9th Air Forces used it as a depot to store equipment. There may also have been large sidings linked to the adjacent rail network, plus a grass runway. Within the village itself the vicarage was commandeered as the Headquarters and an officers’ mess was built in Silver Lane.



It became a prisoner-of-war camp in 1944 when the soldiers left for the D-Day invasion of Europe. The British army was still using the camp until the 1960s but the land was finally sold in 1980.

Location based on the present day HMP Dovegate.