X-Nico

10 unusual facts about Salisbury Plain


434th Operations Group

Shortly after its arrival at Fulbeck, the group was reassigned to RAF Aldermaston in the Salisbury Plain area to co-locate with 101st Airborne Division in preparation for the invasion of northern France.

Chris Budgen

Budgen is also the only Premiership player to have ever juggled a career as an active soldier and Professional Rugby player, Budgen is stationed on Salisbury Plain and has also seen action in Helmand Province.

Clayton Lawrence Bissell

He sailed for England with the 22nd Aero Squadron, and received additional flying training at Salisbury Plain in England and aerial gunnery training in Scotland.

Colin Rankin

On Salisbury Plain in England, he was dismissed by Major General Sir John Monash as "incapable".

Harry Colebourn

Colebourn named her "Winnie," after his adopted hometown, and took her across the Atlantic with him to Salisbury Plain, where she became an unofficial mascot of The Fort Garry Horse, a Militia cavalry regiment.

Rob McElwee

Rob joined the Met Office in 1982 working as a weather observer, spending most of the next eight years observing the weather on the Army Air Corps base of Netheravon on the Salisbury Plain.

Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.3

204 crashed on Salisbury Plain on 11 March 1914 when its rudder failed, possibly due to metal fatigue, killing its crew of two.

The Funniest Joke in the World

The British Army test the joke on Salisbury Plain against a rifleman (Terry Jones), who snickers and falls dead on the range, then translate it into German.

The Greatest Thing in Life

There is some speculation, however, as to whether some of the shots originated in Salisbury Plain, in the United Kingdom, or was footage purchased by Griffith from Franz Kleinschmidt.

Thomas Helliker

Helliker was hanged on his 19th birthday; his colleagues claimed his body and carried it across Salisbury Plain back to Trowbridge.


1st Canadian Armoured Brigade

1st Tank Brigade moved to the UK in the summer of 1941; personnel arrived in the Clyde on 30 June and were promptly moved to Salisbury Plain where they were issued sufficient Churchill tanks for training.

Alick Bryant

Bryant embarked on HMAT A23 Suffolk at Sydney on 24 April 1917 and disembarked at Plymouth on 17 June 1917, before being sent to the 1st Training Battalion at Sutton Veny on Salisbury Plain.

Amesbury railway station

When it was open Amesbury was the nearest station to Stonehenge and carried a lot of traffic to the military areas in and around Salisbury Plain, particularly during the Second World War in the run up to D-Day.

Bere Ferrers rail accident

Two troopships of the NZEF, the Ulimaroa and the Norman had just arrived at Plymouth Sound from New Zealand, and the soldiers were en route to Sling Camp on Salisbury Plain.

RAF Welford

As part of the IX Troop Carrier Command's desire to have its C-47 groups commence training with paratroops of the 101st Airborne Division deployed in the Salisbury Plain area, the squadrons of the 435th Troop Carrier Group arrived at Welford on 25 January 1944 from RAF Langar flying C-47s and C-53s.

Royal Artillery Barracks

Suggestions of a move came to nothing until a Defence Estates Review in 2003 proposed a move to Larkhill on Salisbury Plain (where the Royal School of Artillery has been based since 1915).

Southern England Chalk Formation

In Wiltshire is Salisbury Plain, the Wiltshire Downs and Cranborne Chase, all three famous for their archaeology, and it was on these downs that Augustus Pitt Rivers developed the methods of modern archaeological field work in the 19th century.

Stonehenge Aotearoa

Stonehenge Aotearoa, was built by members of The Phoenix Astronomy Society and is located near Carterton, New Zealand is a modern adaptation of the Stonehenge ruins on the Salisbury Plain of England.