In the late 19th century the War Office began buying land on Salisbury Plain, primarily to the east of Imber, and using it for manœuvres. Beginning in the late 1920s, farms around Imber were bought, as well as the land on which the village sat. The pressures of agricultural depression, combined with the good prices offered by the military, encouraged the sale of land, with few being put off by the new conditions of their tenancy. This allowed the War Office to assume control and evict the residents if necessary. By the time of the Second World War, almost all of the land in and around Imber, except the church, vicarage, chapel, schoolroom and "Bell Inn", belonged to the War Office.