"Greenham Peace Camp fabric" [NMLH.1993.475.5]

Catalogue Number
NMLH.1993.475.5

Object Name
fabric

Place
Didsbury; Manchester

Events
Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp

Date
1980s

Description
Scrap of muddied light blue cotton fabric from Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp. Its donor wrote "This is a piece of material taken from the wire fencing surrounding the site at Greenham Common. This wire netting is tied with all kinds of material tied in 'knots of friendship' from visiting groups and individuals who came to bring solidarity, food and encouragement to the women who live there."


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 upcoming Trident Programme.

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