The Badgers of Tyneham

Tyneham can be found on the Dorset coast, hidden away in a little valley between Kimmeridge and Lulworth Cove. It is a "ghost village". The houses are empty shells - the rooves, the upstairs floors and the windows are gone. Nobody lives there any more.

It was different before the Second World War. Tyneham was a thriving village. People farmed the land and fished in the sea. Then, during the war, the people of Tyneham were evacuated. They were told that the land where they lived was needed by the army. The army needed somewhere for its soldiers to train, so that Britain could fight the Nazi threat. So the people moved away, and looked forward to the day when they could return to their lovely little village.

The War ended, but the people of Tyneham were not allowed to return to their homes. The army still needed places to train, in case there were were any more wars to fight. So Tyneham and the area around it was kept as army land.

Today, Tyneham still belongs to the army. Most days of the year, soldiers train in the countryside around the old village, and explosive shells are fired at targets. The guns fall silent most weekends though, and also around Christmas time, at Easter, for a week at the end of May, and for the whole of August. During these times, people are allowed to visit Tyneham.

The village school.

The army has repaired the village church, and turned it into a museum. The village school has also been restored, and visitors can see some of the work done by the children at the school before the War. All of the work on display is about the animals and plants of Tyneham. Back in those days, people did not have televisions to watch or computer games to play with, so they often took an interest in the plants and animals around them. Luckily, there were a lot of plants and animals in the countrside around Tyneham - including badgers!

A boy called Jim Wellman wrote about badgers. In his essay, he told how he went to look for badger dung pits with his friend Arthur, even though his mum said that they shouldn't play there. Jim also wrote about his dad planting a hedge near a farm. The hedge was planted across one of the paths used by the badgers. This did not stop the badgers - they just kept breaking down the hedge at the spot where it blocked their path! Jim's dad told him that badgers always use the same paths, and won't go a different way for anything.

(To see Jim's essay, click here.)

Jim and his family had to leave Tyneham with the rest of the villagers during the war, never to return. But the wildlife of Tyneham remained. Today, the wooded stream valley is full of wildflowers, especially ramsons (also called wild garlic), just as it always used to be. The trees are full of birds - even nightingales can still be heard. Because the army kept the land around Tyneham as a training area, modern ways of farming have never been used there. And so, even though the air is full of the noise of gunfire and explosions for most of the year, the wildlife has survived - and that includes the badgers!

A badger print, on the track from the village to the sea.

Badgers, descended from the animals that Jim Wellman wrote about so many years ago, still live close to the village. In fact, they even have dung pits in the village itself! If you look closely along the track that leads from the village to the sea, you may find a badger footprint among all the prints left by people and their dogs.

In the spring, as they follow their pathways through the wooded stream valley, the badgers trample down the ramsons, and their paths are easy to see. Some of these paths were probably used by the badgers that Jim wrote about before the Second World War. The villagers have gone since then, and the army have moved in with their guns and shells. But the badgers are still there. Just as Jim Wellman wrote - "they alus (always) goes walking on the same paths, and won't go different for anything"!