Hotel Christol, Boulogne

[snavek]

I believe this Hotel is still a going concern and wonder if there is still any sign of it's use as a base during the early stages of the War. Hammerton suggests that English speaking French officers were first on the scene detailed to act as staff interpreters for British troops, these were closely followed by British staff officers. Any Boulogne pals or visitors been inside?

Keith

[Terry_Reeves]

It was home to No 7 British Red Cross Hospital, Boulogne between Oct 14 to Jan 15 and Aug 15 -to Nov 15. It was also known as the Allied Forces Hospital.

TR

[snavek]

Thanks Terry, I suppose once the Allied interpreters got themselves sorted out they joined their relevant units closer to the front, freeing up the hotel for other use. I'm interested because Ironside, in his diaries, mentions he stayed at the Hotel Bristol (sic) at the start of the war, arriving in Boulogne on 5th August.

Keith

[Harvie]

I've been looking into the history of the Hotel Christol recently as I believe my grandfather (A VAD ambulance driver with the British Red Cross Society) may have had connections with it? He arrived in France with the Red Cross on 3rd November 1914 and he was originally stationed in Boulogne, so I feel pretty optimistic he would have visited the Hotel Christol at this time probably many times? He may have even stayed there as it was not only used as the British Red Cross HQ in 1915 it was also used as a hostel for Red Cross VAD workers and a restaurant too.

However I'm afraid the hotel is no longer there, the whole street was pretty much destroyed in the Second World War I'm afraid. The location is easy to locate however and a bridge across the river is located in the same place in front of where the hotel once stood.

The address 5-7 Place Frédéric Sauvage, 62200 Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, is where it stood on the corner with La Rue Faidherbe. There is still a bridge immediately in front of the location. A new hotel called the Logis Hôtel Faidherbe is two doors down from where the Hotel Christol once stood.

There are two great paintings from its wartime use with the Red Cross, that can be found at the following locations on the web:

http://www.historypin.com/attach/project/41-putting-art-on-the-map/map/index/#!/geo:50.723443,1.601987/zoom:15/dialog:176303/tab:stories/

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1821

I also found the following on the hotel:

A large 19th century hotel, conveniently situated near the port on the north bank of the river Liane, the Hotel Christol was rapidly commandeered for military purposes in 1914. For a brief period at the beginning of the war it was No.7 Red Cross Hospital (Allied Base Hospital) before becoming the Head Quarters of the Red Cross in France in 1915. It was also used as a Hostel and Restaurant for Red Cross workers and relatives passing through Boulogne until May 1919. It continued in use as a hotel until the Second World War, when it was destroyed along with large swathes of the waterfront.

I know this is an old post but still may be of interest?

[sotonmate]

Harvie

An interesting contribution which Snavek will very likely see,he was online here in the last few days.

[snavek]

Yes, thanks Harvie, sad to think that its gone. On the 5th August 1914 'Tiny' Ironside spent his first night in France there as a Staff Captain. Thank goodness there are paintings to show what the Hotel liked like.

[Sarah Reay]

It was home to No 7 British Red Cross Hospital, Boulogne between Oct 14 to Jan 15 and Aug 15 -to Nov 15. It was also known as the Allied Forces Hospital.

TR

Hello, I just wondered - can you tell me please - do you know where I might find records for the Hospital for November 1915? The folk at the Red Cross archives told me that it moved to Etaples in August 1915, but I know for a fact that my seriously wounded grandfather was staying there up to the morning of 17th November! Any ideas please? Thank you!!!

[Terry_Reeves]

Sarah

Sue Light is the person to ask.

TR

[Sarah Reay]

Sarah

Sue Light is the person to ask.

TR

Can you tell me please how I would contact Sue Light? Thank you!!

[Sue Light]

Sarah

No.7 British Red Cross Hospital (Allied Forces Base Hospital) opened in Boulogne at the Hotel Christol on 23rd October 1914, and it closed there on the 11th January 1915. Within a month the Hotel Christol had been taken over as the Headquarters of the British Red Cross Society in France. No.7 BRCS Hospital remained closed until 10th August 1915 when it reopened in Etaples, and closed once again on November 30th 1915 when it transferred to Palermo.

I understand that this doesn't agree with information that you have, but it does seem that by November 1915 the Christol had not been used for sick patients for many months.

Sue

[Sarah Reay]

Sue,

How interesting! The Hotel Christol was definitely being used for badly wounded men after 10th August 1915! I agree with what you have detailed above in terms of official records but I know that my grandfather, a severely wounded Army Chaplain was taken there at the end of November 1915! I have also seen other records of this including letters from another wounded man who were there before returning to England at the end of 1915. However, I have looked at the War Diaries and you are right, it would appear that the hospital re-opened in Etaples! So, what was happening at Hotel Christol? ... and who was running the hospital? I know that my grandfather was at Hotel Christol for three or four days and that he was attended to by English nurses. So, there is a bit of a mystery here? I shall look forward to hearing your comments. Many thanks!

Sarah

[Sue Light]

Sarah

It's very hard for me to comment as I only know one side of the story. Do the documents you have refer to your grandfather being at No.7 BRCS Hospital, or being cared for at the Hotel Christol? From February 1915 when the hospital moved out the Christol was taken over as the general and administrative headquarters of the BRCS in France. It would have been full, not only of administrative staff but also medical and nursing staff coming in and going out of Boulogne and often waiting around for some time.

At the time of the takeover a suite of rooms was retained at the Christol for sick members of their own staff and any other local BRCS staff in the town. This facility was later moved to the Hotel Sussex at Wimereux, but there would certainly have been some sick facility at the hotel in the first year or two of the war. There would have been BRCS medical and nursing staff attached there - probably just one medical officer and two or three nurses depending on need.

So at that time was your grandfather a chaplain attached to the BRCS rather than a member of the RAChD? And if he was severely wounded presumably that hadn't occurred in Boulogne, so where had he come from previously? And what happened after four days? There must have been some decision made that his condition was stable enough to be cared for temporarily in the more comfortable conditions of 'sick bay' rather than a military or Red Cross hospital - presumably before evacuation to England?

Lots of 'assume' and 'probably' there. But I can understand BRCS staff, especially officer staff, being retained at the Christol at that time for a few days awaiting embarkation, but not as patients of No.7 BRCS Hospital which was elsewhere.

Sue

[Sarah Reay]

Sue,

Thank you for your detailed response - much appreciated! Thank you! My grandfather was attached to RAChD and was wounded in Flanders - November 1915. He was operated on at a CCS and then after a few days was transferred to Boulogne where he stayed a few more days at Hotel Christol before being transported back to England on the hospital ship Anglia. He described the room at the hotel which held himself and one other, a wounded Canadian. The room overlooked the quay with a view out to sea. So, maybe Hotel Christol was used only for 'special' cases? Prior to his operation at the CCS, my grandfather had a piece of shrapnel cut through his neck and jaw so he was unable to speak at the time. On the off-chance, do you have any ideas where there might be records that would include Hotel Christol at this time?

Thank you Sue! Kindest regards, Sarah.

[Sue Light]

I really suspect that there was some purely random reason for his stay at the Hotel Christol. Boulogne was full of hospitals so why a wounded man would end up somewhere that was not a hospital is a puzzle.

Was Boulogne so overflowing with casualties at the time that the BRCS had offered some short-term accommodation?

Did he have some contact there - a friend or colleague who had heard that he was injured and suggested he went there? It would be interesting to know the status of the Canadian and see if the two men had anything in common.

At that time Boulogne was already a centre for the reception and treatment of men with jaw and facial injuries with a special unit set up at No.13 Stationary Hospital under the direction of Franco-American dental surgeon Auguste Valadier, later joined by Harold Gillies. Does this come into the equation somewhere? If it was planned for him to go straight back to the UK maybe admission to No.13 Stationary was not thought appropriate for such a short time, though I'm not sure I follow the logic of that.

As it was the Headquarters of the BRCS in France the Hotel Christol gets a lot of mentions, but I've never seen anything that shows it was a medical facility after January 1915. It has a paragraph in the large BRCS/St.John report book** and there are various documents at the Imperial War Museum within the Women's Work Collection. I've got a three page account here from the IWM (originally a BRCS document) and have attached the first page which covers that period but has no relevant information.

It's the BRCS Archives that hold the main records and if they can't produce anything I'm not sure where you would look. I don't think there's a problem finding records of the Christol, but details of the aspects you're looking for would be a real needle in a haystack job, particularly if, as I suspect, this was just a brief period when for some reason they took a few casualties.

Sue

** 'Reports by the Joint War Committee and the Joint War Finance Committee of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in England on Voluntary Aid rendered to the Sick and Wounded at Home and Abroad and to British Prisoners of War, 1914-1919.' H.M.S.O. 1921, and reprinted in a facsimile edition by The Naval and Military Press and the Imperial War Museum.

[Sarah Reay]

Sue,

Well, I think this will remain a bit of a mystery. I wanted to explore all possible avenues of research as I'm a great optimist and have often been fortunate in finding needles in haystacks! But, this part of the mystery looks as though it will remain a slight mystery. The information you have given here is fascinating but obviously doesn't answer the question in terms of how my grandfather ended up at Hotel Christol when the main function of the hotel had changed. With regards to the Canadian, I have no further information - my grandfather was unable to speak so there was no conversation between them. I'm afraid that I have no further clues to this mystery. He was on his way back to England for further surgery. Going onto the hospital ship, he was one of the 'cot cases' and he was in a fairly poorly way so maybe they did treat him as a little bit of special case? We'll never know. But, thank you for sharing all this remarkable detail on Hotel Christol!!

Best wishes, Sarah.

[Sarah Reay]

Just discovered on the following Red Cross website that there were quite a large number of nurses that were serving at Hotel Christol throughout the war!?!? If you put 'Hotel Christol' in the original search, leaving the other search options blank, then scroll down the individual nurses, look at their original cards and you can see the hotel / hospital listed on their individual records All very interesting!

[Sue Light]

Sarah

There were scores of VADs working at the Hotel Christol but not as nurses - they were General Service VADs doing equivalent work in military hospitals and establishments to that done by the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps elsewhere. So they worked as orderlies, waitresses, drivers, typists, clerks - a multitude of non-nursing jobs as might be expected at any BRCS Headquarters. Here's a sample of a photo of 'domestic staff' at the Hotel Christol in the latter part of the war (Image IWM Q7987)

Sue

[Sarah Reay]

Wow!! Sue, you amaze me! What a great photo! I think to the untrained eye, some of these ladies in the photograph could easily be mistaken as nursing staff! The hotel looks marvelous too! Do you have any other interior pictures of Hotel Christol? Once again, thank you for all the fascinating information that you have shared on Hotel Christol. Best wishes, Sarah.

[Sue Light]

They come from the IWM Collections and if you put the word Christol into the search box here a number of different images come up:

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections

General Service VADs didn't usually wear a uniform so similar to the nursing staff, but as the Hotel Christol was the 'flagship' of the BRCS in France it was obviously done there.

Sue

[Sarah Reay]

Thank you for sharing this information! I had missed this picture on the IWM website, so thank you!

[Blue Dragoon]

Great thread, so can I confirm where in Bolougne No 7 Stationary Hospital was on 30th Apr 1915?  Cheers, George

Edited 20 January by Blue Dragoon