On a walk on the bridleway between South Anston and Todwick, just before I got to Kiveton Lane I glanced up at an imposing stone barn as I walked through Kiveton Hall Farm. I spotted the inscription below above the door of the stone barn:

barn build by german pow

It says 'Built by August Schleusener ex-PoW in 135 days, 1955'. The dats is 10 years after the end of world war 2, so I assume August made a new life for himself in South Yorkshire? Bob Durham wrote of German PoWs he met in WW2: '...German P.O.W.s.. They used to have a great deal of freedom and sometimes helped Grandad in the garden for the price of a pint in the Station Hotel [in Kiveton]. No one had any argument with them. One officer started to teach me to speak German but he got sent away soon after. '. The design above the inscription looks vaguely like an aeroplane - I wonder if August was in the Luftwaffe? Any information about him would be welcome.

The barn still stands in 2012, and looks good for another 56 years. Judging from the irregular stone blocks I'd say it was build from one of the dry stone walls that used to criss cross the fields around Todwick.

august's barn

Note that this is also roughly where Keeton Hall was in the 18th century, hence Kiveton Hall Farm.

 

Google Ads