BRISTOL, ENGLAND—Local school children and injured service men and women participating in Operation Nightingale are assisting in an excavation on Salisbury Plain that is investigating how England’s horses and mules were cared for during World War I. Documentary evidence indicates that a veterinary hospital at the site, known as Larkhill Camp, quarantined and cared for some of the 500,000 animals that served the army by hauling weaponry, stores, and personnel to and from the front lines. No traces of the hospital buildings survived, but the test pits and metal detection survey did recover horse shoes, farrier’s nails, and other horse trappings. “This project enables researchers, young people, and those effected by the traumas of war to work together. Horses were such an important part of the legacy of World War I and ‘Digging War Horse’ helps people to understand the significance of horses during the war years at home and abroad,” said Philip Rowe in a University of Bristol press release. For more on WWI-era excavations, see "ANZAC's Next Chapter." Click here for images from the Larkhill Camp site excavation.
