Sandyhillock Hostel

The camp on the ground

The national record of the historic environment records the camp about 275 metres south of Sandyhillock farmsteading, in the parish of Knockando, at NJ 25652 44925 — administratively in Moray, although the wartime and postwar papers give the address as Banffshire. It was identified from a vertical air photograph flown on 26 August 1946.

That photograph shows a fenced rectangular enclosure east of the B9102 containing at least 39 huts, mainly of Nissen type, with about 27 further huts immediately to the north-west that were probably the staff and guard quarters, and some buildings on the south side of the road. There was a recreation area to the south-east and a sewage works to the east. Later Ordnance Survey maps mark the ground as a poultry farm.

From Italian labour battalion to German working camp

During a visit on 30 September and 1 October 1945, an inspector named Grant described Camp 67 as an Italian Labour Battalion under Major Murray-Lyon. Much of his report concerned German prisoners at separate locations, Cairnfield House near Buckie and Nethybridge. Their activities should not be assigned to the main Sandyhillock camp.

By February 1947 the main camp and its associated accommodation held German prisoners under Lieutenant-Colonel H. Lawton. Inspector S. Denham Jacobs recorded 269 men at headquarters, with others in Cairnfield, Nethybridge, billets and a miscellaneous category. The combined 638 was a distributed total, not the number living in the main camp.

A national gazetteer of prisoner-of-war camps compiled for English Heritage in 2003 lists Camp 67 as “Snadyhillock Camp, Criagellachie” in Banffshire, typed as a German Working Camp in Scotland — apparent misspellings of Sandyhillock and Craigellachie. The row gives no grid reference and no note on survival.

Screening and camp staff in 1947

The February 1947 report’s header sets out the camp’s strength as two officers and 636 other ranks. Its screening figures place 21 men in category A, 613 in B and four in C. The tribunal adviser had heard 41 appeals, allowing 26 and rejecting 15, with none pending, and 206 prisoners had been repatriated by that date.

The report also lists the men who ran the camp from inside it. Lieutenant-Colonel H. Lawton commanded, with Staff Sergeant Morgan as interpreter. The German camp leader was Staff Sergeant Kiel and his deputy Corporal Jacoby, the German medical officer was Dr Bachert, and the outlying hostels were led by Corporal Thoenniges at Cairnfield and Staff Sergeant Guttmann at Nethybridge.

Waiting to return home

Jacobs visited during severe winter weather. He reported that morale had risen when repatriation began, then fallen as prisoners realised how slowly departures were proceeding. He credited warmth, recreation and entertainment with helping the situation improve. His account also noted the loss of experienced educational organisers as men went home.

The report’s judgements about prisoners’ intelligence and political outlook were the inspector’s own assessments. The concrete activities he recorded reveal a fuller picture: reading, music, film, discussions and publishing continued while men waited for repatriation.

Books, music and publishing

In February 1947 the camp library contained 600 books. Weekly discussion groups at headquarters attracted 40–50 men. Melde edited a camp magazine, printed in 120 copies every two months, and prepared a weekly news digest called Die Wandzeitung.

A ten-member orchestra led by Schmitt gave concerts at headquarters and the outlying hostels. There were occasional variety shows in camp theatres. The YMCA and another film provider visited fortnightly. A Protestant padre was starting a youth club.

Learning English in 1948

R. D. Miller’s visit on 24–27 January 1948 found 322 men in the main camp. Ten pupils attended English lessons there: four beginners and six intermediate learners. Each group met twice a week. A hut provided a classroom with electric lighting and central heating; a lecture hut could hold 100 people.

The teachers, F. Riedel and H. J. Kulartz, had come through camps in Egypt and a course at Wilton Park. They told Miller that they had expected training not to delay their repatriation. Instead they found themselves teaching in Scotland. Miller considered both satisfactory teachers and gave a talk about foreign influences on English.

The Ukrainian hostel connection

Sandyhillock subsequently appears in Peter Kormylo’s directory as a YMCA hostel at Craigellachie, Banffshire. The directory explicitly concerns accommodation used by ethnic Ukrainians. This hostel phase belongs alongside the earlier POW history; the 1947–1948 German inspection figures are not Ukrainian population statistics.

The hostel network it belonged to was large. Some 21,000 Ukrainian European Volunteer Workers and 860 dependants were brought to the United Kingdom between 1947 and 1950, and almost all were housed in hostels — former military and prisoner-of-war camps, wartime industrial and agricultural hostels, and buildings converted after the war — run by the National Service Hostels Corporation, the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Coal Board, the YMCA, local authorities and private firms. Separately, about 8,500 former members of the Galicia Division were brought to Britain in May and June 1947, held as prisoners of war and released from that status between August and October 1948, after which they too entered the volunteer worker scheme. Most of the hostels had closed by the middle of the 1950s.

A later camping ground

Vertical air photographs flown on 14 May 1988 show rows of hut bases with only a few huts still standing, so most of the camp had gone by then.

In August 2019 the former camp was photographed as Speyside Camping and Caravanning Club Site at Archiestown. The survey recorded paths, hut bases and an old ablutions block still serving a washing function. Historical material displayed at reception preserved information about the site’s prison-camp years.

The modern photographs show a tree-lined camping ground and a surviving low building. Its leisure use contrasts with the wartime enclosure, while the remains retain parts of the earlier layout.