WWI Battleground with Practice Trenches Found in UK

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A practice battleground complete with opposing sets of trenches used by British soldiers training for World War I has been discovered on the southern English coast, officials said Friday.

The overgrown ditches on Ministry of Defense (MoD) land in Gosport, near Portsmouth, have long been used for military exercises.

But it has only now emerged that they were in fact trenches used to emulate the conditions that soldiers would face on the bloody fields of northern France.

A local authority official, Rob Harper, was researching a nearby airfield when he came across an aerial photograph from 1951, which revealed two sets of opposing trench systems with a no man's land in between.

"I couldn't believe it because in one corner of this plan was your absolutely classic First World War trench systems -- it's quite jaw-dropping really, we are talking about an area of 500 meters (1,640ft) by 500 meters," Harper said.

David Hopkins, an archaeologist with the local Hampshire County Council who is surveying the site with the MoD, said no official records about the trench system existed.

"It is well-known that troops were stationed at nearby Browndown Camp but to date no historical records have emerged noting the practice trenches," he said.

There are a total of 14 registered practice World War I trench systems in Britain, according to English Heritage.

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