Military-Industrial Enclosure of Britain’s Countryside in the Second World War : Fields into Factories

This book is an examination of how Britain’s Second World War aircraft building and arms production led to a state-sponsored military-industrial land enclosure that irrevocably changed the nation’s landscape. Using a wide range of previously ignored and understudied material from national and local archives, The Military-Industrial Enclosure of Britain’s Countryside in the Second World War uncovers the location, origins, war-time use and post-war lives of a critical mass of 220 sites owned and/or operated by the Ministry of Supply and Ministry of Aircraft Production, the two ministries at the heart of British war production.

Through a chronological analysis of the lives of these factories, Gary Willis demonstrates that, from an environmental history perspective, Britain experienced a long Second World War from 1936 when sites were first identified and building commenced, until 1946, by which time the post-war fate of the majority of sites had been decided. That this military-industrial infrastructure was predominantly built on green-field sites in rural and peri-urban areas has not previously been identified, analysed or quantified, and as a result the broad environmental impact of Britain’s Second World War has been obscured until now.