This new section aims to introduce members to the world of military
archaeology. The discipline can be sub-divided into various sectors,
and these have been given their own space in this section.
The subject only really appeared in the 1970s, spawned by interest
in the thousands of remaining sites left over from WW2, but was
regarded as 'fringe archaeology' by the establishment. A few dedicated
societies were formed amongst enthusiasts and they proceeded to build
up an invaluable database of building/structure types over the years.
By the time the 1990s dawned, heritage bodies across Britain had
come to realise that recent military heritage was every bit as fragile
and worth conserving as the average Roman villa. This led directly to
the Defence of Britain Project, which ran from 1995 -2002 and resulted
in a database of 14,000 surviving anti-invasion defences across
Britain, and another 5,000 military but non anti-invasion sites also
being recorded.
This was due in no small part to the dedicated teams of enthusiasts
who had spent years accumulating a wealth of data on many types of
military buildings, the vast percentage of which no longer exist.