When the First World War began in 1914 Masefield was old enough to be exempted from military service, but he joined the staff of a British hospital for French soldiers, the Hôpital Temporaire d'Arc-en-Barrois in Haute-Marne, serving briefly in 1915 as a hospital orderly. He later published an account of his experiences. At about this time Masefield moved his country retreat from Buckinghamshire to Lollingdon Farm in Cholsey, Berkshire, a setting that inspired a number of poems and sonnets under the title "Lollingdon Downs", and which his family used until 1917.