Land Girls during the Second World War
DACHT : 62.16.9. Land Girls at the wedding of Bill Cutler and Barbara Laplain,DACHT : 62.16.9. Land Girls at the wedding of Bill Cutler and Barbara Laplain, who was a Land Girl from Enfield. who was a Land Girl from Enfield.
Picture: Dacorum Heritage Trust
DACHT : 62.16.10. The wedding was at St John’s Church, Markyate and the arch of pitchforks was made by fellow Land Girls.
Picture: Dacorum Heritage Trust
DACHT : 62.16.7. Land Girls helping with the harvest at Piccotts End.
Picture: Dacorum Heritage Trust
Women were encouraged to join the Women’s Land Army and become Land Girls. They were given a uniform and taught everything from harvesting crops and looking after animals, to ploughing and driving tractors.
Hostels were established for accommodation at Barnes Lodge (Kings Langley), Pendley Manor and Little Gaddesden, which had 34 girls from Yorkshire billeted there in 1942.
During Christmas 1941, Elizabeth II (then Princess Elizabeth and patron of the Women’s Land Army) sent a message to the 20,000 serving Land Girls. She said that they had earned the right to think of themselves as an Army and praised their skill and devotion, which had, “released great battalions of men who now fight for the land they formerly tilled.”
By the Dacorum Heritage Trust