England’s Military Heartland: Preparing for War on Salisbury Plain

A considered investigation of a long-standing army base’s impact on the British countryside.

What is it like to live next door to a British Army base? England’s military heartland provides an eye-opening account of the sprawling military presence on Salisbury Plain, drawing on a wide range of voices from both sides of the divide.

Targeted for expansion under government plans to reorganise the UK’s global defence estate, the Salisbury ’super garrison’ offers a unique opportunity to explore the impact of the military footprint in a particular place. But this is no ordinary environment: as well as being the world-famous site of Stonehenge, the grasslands of Salisbury Plain are home to rare plants and wildlife.

How does the army take responsibility for conserving this unique landscape as it trains young men and women to use lethal weapons? Are its claims that its presence is a positive for the environment anything more than propaganda? Beyond the barracks investigates these questions against the backdrop of a historic landscape inscribed with the legacy of perpetual war.

Vron Ware is a writer and photographer and a visiting professor at LSE. Her books include Return of a Native: Learning from the Land (Repeater 2022) and Military Migrants: Fighting for YOUR Country (2012).

Antonia Lucia Dawes is a lecturer at King’s College London and author of Race Talk: Languages of Racism and Resistance in Neapolitan Street Markets (2020).

Mitra Pariyar is a former academic researcher at Oxford and Kingston universities. He is currently a Dalit rights activist based in Kathmandu and a columnist for The Kathmandu Post.

Alice Cree is an Academic Track Fellow (NUAcT) at Newcastle University. She is Associate Editor of Critical Military Studies and editor of Creative Methods in Military Studies (2023).