Page 22 - Ranger Demo

To prepare the ground for the Camp, the forerunners of the Royal Engineers (Royal Sappers and Miners) were busy on:
The Common where the encampment was formed was an extensive tract of waste, varied with hill and dale. The amplitude of the district, its freedom from enclosures, from wood or bush, or from barriers or hedges to mark the boundaries of individual or corporate properties, and its succession of swelling heights, well adapted it for the purposes of an instructional encampment...5
Figure 1 Extract from Map of the encampment on Chobham Common...6
The contingent of Sappers divided: one detachment in tents south of the 'Magnet' (the HQ site and believed to be Flagstaff Hill – see 1871 1:2,500 Ordnance Survey map and WYLD's plan, figure 1) and that a ‘...flagstaff was erected yesterday on ‘Magnet-hill’ the soubriquet given to the head-quarters on the encampment: another, on 20 June 1853, was detailed to support the team building the pontoon on Virginia Water. By 22 June 1853, the Sapper force consisted of 297 all ranks.7 The initial detachment was camped firstly "...on the skirts of Colonel Challoner's wood, then on Sheep's-Hill [now Ship Hill], and lastly on the Oystershell-hill near the "Magnet" [sic]...".8
The exact location of 'The Magnet' is a little uncertain, but figure 2 is a portrayal of the Chobham Common' battlefield' from the perspective of that place.
accessed 22 January 2020, p384
5 STEVENS, Phil (ed) (2003) Chobham Common Great Camp 1853, The Surrey Heath Local History Club, August 2003
6WYLD, James, Map of the encampment on Chobham Common and the surrounding country, 18 June 1853 Surrey History Centre, reference M/2
7 CONNNOLLY, T W J (1857) History of the Royal Sappers and Miners, from the formation of the Corps in March 1772 to the date when its designation was changed to that of Royal Engineers in October 1856 Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, pp126-146
8 CONNNOLLY
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