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Windlesham House, Portslade: Training Cooks for the Trenches

In 1916, Windlesham House preparatory school in Portslade was transformed into an army cookery school.

Thirty-eight huts were erected in the grounds as more than 14,000 men were given the skills they needed to become an army cook.

Troops were trained to make meals out of the bare minimum ingredients that would feed a company of men from only a mess tin, and to cook stews to feed soldiers only yards from the front line.

As historian Andy Robertshaw proves, meals on the Western Front were nutritious, plentiful and sometimes flavoursome – thanks in part to those cooks who trained at Windlesham House.

Location: Windlesham House, Portslade, Brighton BN41 2WS
Image: Soldiers being fed in the trenches, courtesy of IWM

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