On the 6th May 1921, the Earl of Stamford granted the Manchester and District Boy Scouts Association, a annual tenancy for “all that land called Bowdon Plain within the New Park, Dunham Massey to be used as a training ground for the aforesaid Scout Association”. This site was requisitioned by the War Department in 1942, initially to house 6000 American soldiers in preparation for D-Day landings, then for German and Italian Prisoners of War from 1944.

More about the war years, the American GIs and later the Prisoner of War camp 189 https://web.archive.org/web/20101121044430/http://www.communigate.co.uk/chesh/altrincham/page6.phtml