"This is the fence at Greenham Common leaflet" [Temp.2024.14.59]

Catalogue Number
Temp.2024.14.59

Object Name
Leaflet

Title
This is the fence at Greenham Common

Place
RAF Greenham Common

Events
Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp

Date
1980s

Description
Typewritten leaflet headed by a picture of a chainlink fence topped with barbed wire, with hand-drawn barbed wire surrounding the text of the leaflet. The image is captioned "This is the fence at Greenham Common", and the leaflet is distributed by Greenham Women in London. It contains information about the systematic trespass of Greenham Common, encouraging readers to join their local peace group.


Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp protested against nuclear weapons between 1981 and 2000. Thousands of women, many from the lesbian or wider LGBTQIA community, travelled from all over the UK to live at the site for weeks, months or years.


The RAF base at Greenham Common was one of three sites within the UK chosen to deploy US Cruise missiles during the Cold War. The protest started in 1981 when a group of mainly Welsh women chained themselves to the fences that surrounded the base. Shortly after, in 1982, a women's-only protest camp was established in order to resist further deployment of nuclear weapons. Cruise missiles were removed from Greenham Common in 1987, following the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, shortly before the end of the Cold War in 1991. Despite multiple eviction attempts, the camp remained standing until 2000 to oppose the UK government's nuclear deterrent Trident Programme.

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