As well as having photographs of Thoresby Park during WWII, these three paintings were created by Marie- Louise Roosevelt Pierrepont (1889-1984) which illustrate wartime Thoresby.
The image above shows tanks in Thoresby painted in 1942. In the painting, if you look carefully, there is a fabric covering in the tree canopy over each tank so that they were not spotted by enemy planes.
Francis Cooper reflected on ‘war in the countryside’ as he was used to a quiet area…
“It was excitement to us lads when troops came to Thoresby – It livened things up a bit. I remember the cavalry coming. There was a 5 acres field at Budby full of horses. Then the tanks came. That livened things up a bit.”
This painting shows the nissen huts where some of the men would sleep in the grounds of the Thoresby Estate.