Stobs Camp

Archaeological place

Explorer Tom

Just south of Hawick, Stobs Camp is a place where the grass has learned to keep military secrets, though the barrack hut and drying shed are poor at staying quiet. Follow the heritage trail and the remains tell you about training, captivity and lives squeezed into this rolling Borders ground. The War Office bought the Stobs Estate in 1902 and construction began the next year. Thousands of volunteers and soldiers trained here before the First World War; the camp later held prisoners during the First World War. The site was also used in the Second World War and, after that, accommodated Polish former servicemen and families. That is crowded history for a place labelled abandoned, a word that sounds as if everybody simply forgot to lock the gate on the way out. The Stobs Camp Project has made a free heritage trail through key parts of the former camp, including the barrack hut, drying shed and former cemetery. Its pictures and recorded voices help put people back among earthworks and surviving structures. Download the trail before travelling if you want it on a phone; the walk takes about ninety minutes. It is an outdoor walk, half of it off tarmac, so the history arrives with mud if the weather has been feeling helpful. Parts of the route cross land now grazed by cattle and sheep. The project asks visitors to avoid the area in April and the first weeks of May during calving and lambing, follow farmers’ directions and close gates. Come prepared to read a landscape rather than tour an intact barracks. Stobs has plenty to say, but it makes you walk between the sentences.

What is recorded here

Map note: Stobs Camp is recorded near Stobs, Scottish Borders, Scotland as an ancient site. The past can keep its secrets; the map gives you a starting point.

From OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors) w1004664389

This does not grant access. Check current paths, opening conditions and ownership before entering.