Aldershot Camp, a permanent camp of exercise on the confines of Hampshire, Surrey, and Berkshire, 35 miles SW. of London, and S. of Windsor. It was established in 1854-55, during the Crimean war, to provide for practical instruction in tactics, outpost duties, and other exercises re- quiring a wide tract of country and large bodies of troops—such as brigades and divisions—for which no opportunity had previously been given to the British army, except at the temporary camp at Chobham in 1853. About three square miles of moorland, called Aldershot Heath, was purchased by government, deemed suitable as being distant from any thickly inhabited district, with three or four railway stations communicating with London, Southampton, Portsmouth, Reading, and Guildford, and from its situation on the Bagshot Sands likely to be, as it has proved, extremely healthy. Here the wooden huts, each furnishing living and sleeping room for twenty-five men, which had been used latterly in the Crimea, and others of the same pattern, were erected. These are being superseded gradually by brick huts and barracks, the finest in the country, the cost of the camp having been upwards of £1,250,000 during the first five years. The Basingstoke Canal, running directly across the Heath, has occasioned a division into North Camp and South Camp, each of which is capable of considerable extension. The huts and a large brick hospital for 250 sick stand on a high level plateau; and below them, to the south, are the so-called permanent barracks, accommodating three battalions of infantry, three regiments of cavalry, and three batteries of artillery. Around the camp are many square miles of plain, heath, scrub, morass, valley, and hill, also the property of government, and available for manœuvres. There are usually from 10,000 to 15,000 troops of all arms at the camp, several militia battalions under canvas during the summer, and many volunteers who spend fourteen days at a time in tents. The troops are under the command of a lieutenant-general, and are divided into three infantry and one cavalry brigade, each under a major-general. The artillery are also under a major-general, and the engineers under a colonel on the staff. There are large bodies of the Commissariat, Transport, Ordnance Store, and Medical Staff Corps, and the camp is the centre of instruction for Bearer Companies (q.v.), army-signalling, field-firing, field-cookery, and military gymnastics, for which a large gymnasium is provided. There is also a school of instruction for officers of yeomanry cavalry, a fine military library, called after the Prince Consort, and churches for every denomination. Troops of the regular army are generally quartered at Aldershot for the two years preceding their embarkation for India. A considerable town has sprung up near the camp, with a civil population of (1881) 12,875, as against 875 in Aldershot parish in 1851.
Small similar camps exist at the Curragh of Kildare in Ireland, and at Shorncliffe near Dover; but that at Aldershot is at the same time the largest and most complete garrison in the United Kingdom, and the headquarters of practical military work in the field.