 The site lies in open ground in the northeast of Chitterne parish, between Chitterne and Tilshead, at Ordnance Survey .The facility was built in 1988 to resemble a German village in Bavaria, to provide troops with a simulated backdrop when training for operations in European theatres including the Cold War, the Balkans and Northern Ireland.The facility includes a shanty town made up of cargo containers stacked and laid out in rows of tightly packed streets, to provide an additional training area that more closely resembles the Army's operational theatres in Operation Herrick and Operation Telic.