First World War Training Trenches and associated earthworks south of Berkhamsted Cricket Club

Scheduled area

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History & significance

First World War Training Trenches and associated earthworks south of Berkhamsted Cricket Club is a scheduled ancient monument comprising a network of practice trenches constructed during the First World War to prepare troops for combat conditions. The site represents the physical legacy of military training undertaken in the Home Counties during the conflict, when such earthwork systems were established to familiarize soldiers with trench warfare tactics before deployment to the Western Front. The surviving remains consist of interconnected trench lines and related defensive works, which preserve evidence of early twentieth-century military engineering and the scale of preparation undertaken on the domestic front. This monument illustrates an important but often overlooked aspect of the First World War, namely the intensive training infrastructure developed within Britain itself to condition large numbers of recruits for the demands of static, trench-based warfare.

First World War Training Trenches and associated earthworks south of Berkhamsted Cricket Club is a scheduled monument protected by Historic England under reference 1489045. View the official record →

Questions & answers

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