Almost the whole area was planted with conifers. During the 1930s, the Ministry of Labour supplied the men from among the unemployed in the country generally. Many came from the mining communities of the Midlands and South Yorkshire. They were housed in one of a number of Instructional Centres created by the Ministry, most of them on Forestry Commission property; by 1938, the Ministry had 38 Instructional Centres across Britain. The hutted camp in Bourne was located on land which had been Estray Pastures and was to become part of the town as Woodland and Forest Avenues; there were also associated summer camps at Pickworth, Aslackby and Kirkby Underwood.