Our thanks to Dr Barclay and Historic Environment Scotland for the following information:
During the Great War Stobs had played an important role as the chief camp of the PoW system in Scotland, and in training soldiers. After the war all that changed, and with the armed forces reducing in size, as volunteers and conscripts were released back into civilian life, Stobs diminished in importance.
In 1921, a draft list of summer training camps was published and none of the planned camps were to be at Stobs. At the end of the year there was a statement that, for the sake of economy, Territorial camps were as far as possible to be held in the neighbourhood of the HQ of the permanent formation.
“There is evidence of a radical reduction of the scale of accommodation. After a small sale in 1920 of motor lorries and carts from Stobs camp, a year later, a series of advertisements appeared, offering for sale, on 3 and 4 May 1921, a wide range of buildings and equipment, listed in some detail in some of the advertisements. Forty-five ‘non-sectional barrack huts’ measuring 120ft by 20ft were offered, along with a further 28 of a similar size but with annexes measuring 12ft by 8ft. Four non-sectional huts measuring 60ft by 20ft were also offered, along with one ‘sectional’ hut measuring 60ft by 20ft. There were also 32 Nissen barrack huts (27ft by 16ft) and a single ‘Magnificent Corrugated Iron Building’ measuring 152ft by 29ft, with 29 rooms, with central heating radiators. Also offered were nineteen further buildings: cook-houses, bathrooms, a ‘Confessional Hut’, Post Office, Bakery, carpenter’s shop, plumber’s shop, guard hut, petrol store, RE hut etc, as well as bakers’ ovens, cooking ranges and miscellaneous camping equipment. Four further huts (of the 120ft by 20ft size) were offered for sale in November 1922. In total, therefore, 133 buildings had been removed from the site by the end of 1922.” – courtesy Dr Barclay and Historic Environment Scotland.
See: The search for the huts from Stobs Camp