This is the view from the entrance of the former POW Labour camp at Cultybraggan, near the village of Comrie, Perthshire. This would originally have been the compound for the British guards, and the white building in the distance was the detention blocks, or solitary.

Cultybraggan camp was built in 1941, and was designed as a maximum security camp for ‘Black’ (die-hard) Nazis. It was split into five compounds according to the prisoner’s branch of service, with an additional compound for officers. The camp gained a reputation for bullying and intimidation from these officers, and this culminated in the December 1944 murder of a prisoner wrongly suspected of being a British spy. Five Germans were tried and executed in 1945 for this murder, all 2000 officers were transferred to other camps in a single day, and the camp itself was disbanded in 1945.

Because it lies in 2000 acres of hills and moors, the army retained the camp post-war as a battalion-sized fieldcraft training centre for the Territorial Army (British Army reservists). In the 1970s, the western part of the camp, which included the buildings associated with the 1944 murder, were demolished and replaced by a firing range. The camp was downgraded to a company-sized facility at the same time.

Relinquished by the MoD in 2004, it now lies empty. A committee has been formed by citizens from the local village who exercised their right to buy part of the camp, and plans mooted include industrial units and perhaps a military museum. Timeshare properties will be built on other parts of the site.

The first five photographs are all of buildings in the British guards’compound.

The next two shots are of the camp chapel, which sits next to the main gate. It is one of many surviving original 16 foot span Nissen huts from WW2.