THE Fovant Badges provide travellers on the A30 with a tantalising surprise.

Tony Phillips told his audience at the January meeting a fascinating story of the soldiers who had been at the training camp at Fovant during the Great War.

Many from London, some from Australia and from southern counties' regiments.

The camp spread for about seven miles along the A30 and at any one time about 25,000 men were there.

Begun in 1916, 20 badges were completed by 1918.

They were designed to be seen from the road, so the men digging on the steep hillside communicated by semaphore with others watching on the A30.

Trenches about 18 inches deep outlined the designs – one, the Australian Commonwealth Military Forces badge, being half the size of a football pitch.

They were then filled with chalk dug from nearby pits.

By 1928 the badges were becoming faint and in the Second World War the Government ordered that they be left to be grown over to avoid them assisting enemy aircraft navigation.

After the war interest was revived and by 2003 eight badges had been restored by volunteers and latterly by professional contractors.

A constant programme of work is required to counter weed growth, slippage and wash-out of the chalk.

Rechalking of two or three badges takes place each year as does the Drumhead Service which draws worldwide visitors to this very special memorial, now with Ancient Monument status and faithfully maintained by the Fovant Badges Society.