Bustard Camp, Salisbury Plain, with column of marching troops, 1914

Postcard photograph, World War One, Home Front, 1914.

The British Army first purchased land for military training on Salisbury Plain in 1897. The outbreak of war in 1914 led to a huge increase in the size of the Army. The existing barracks could no longer accommodate all the troops. Tented camps soon sprang up all over the plain and photographs of the time show serried ranks of white bell-tents lining the roads and tracks.