The Bergwerk ,Beaumont Hamel.

[andrew pugh]

Good Evening 

The area once known as the Bernwerk in Beaumont Hamel,Why is it all fenced off, and what would you expect to find inside.There are stories of tunnels inside is this true?

 

Regards Andy 

[Knotty]

Hi Andy

I believe it was the entrance to a chalk mine,which acted as accomadation for the defenders. I imagine that the ground and surrounding area is unstable, I will check  and get back unless someone beats me to it.

 

John

[horrocks]

Where is it?

[Jack Sheldon]

Voila!  It was immediately adjacent to the road leading up over Redan Ridge towards Serre.

 

 

[Knotty]

See also the NLS 1/5000 edition 3 Beaumont Hamel map, trenches corrected to 14 Nov 1916 showing in greater detail

Edited 6 September , 2016 by Knotty

[andrew pugh]

Hi All

Thanks to all of you for your information.

 

Regards Andy

[horrocks]

It took me a bit of a while to work it out, but got it now, opposite the big farm buildings on the Redan road.

 

Many thanks for info.

[KIRKY]

what is the grid pattern top left on the map?

Tony

[paul@bolton]

Well, well. One learns something new - or something different from what one had always believed - every day. Unless the Burnwurk (or Bernwerk) and the Bergwerk are different positions?

As far as I was concerned, the Burnwurk (spelling as per Battlefield Europe's Beaumont Hamel by Nigel Cave) was in the patch of woodland, north of the Auchonvillers road, between the Beaumont Hamel Cemetery and the village. There is a map on page 33 of my edition of the guide and, on page 38, a view towards the cemetery and to the sunken lane beyond, This woodland appears to correspond to the hatched area above 111 Bat on Jack's map.

 

The Bergwerk is in a different spot entirely.

 

Paul

[genegwf]

I am really enjoying this thread but I am confused! I have studied the maps in the Battleground Europe book as well as the one Jack Sheldon posted and I cannot work out where the Bergwerk is or was.

Would someone indicate the area of the Bergwerk and any other point of interest to help this uneducated forum member to become educated ? 

Thanks,

Gene

[roel22]

Caption reads: "The Bergwerk on the left and Beaumont-Hamel on the right"

 

 

[nigelcave]

12 hours ago, paul@bolton said:

Well, well. One learns something new - or something different from what one had always believed - every day. Unless the Burnwurk (or Bernwerk) and the Bergwerk are different positions?

As far as I was concerned, the Burnwurk (spelling as per Battlefield Europe's Beaumont Hamel by Nigel Cave) was in the patch of woodland, north of the Auchonvillers road, between the Beaumont Hamel Cemetery and the village. There is a map on page 33 of my edition of the guide and, on page 38, a view towards the cemetery and to the sunken lane beyond, This woodland appears to correspond to the hatched area above 111 Bat on Jack's map.

 

The Bergwerk is in a different spot entirely.

 

Paul

Oh dear: public humiliation! I must have got Burnwu(e)rk from somewhere, but all is lost in the mists of time, as it is twenty two years now since I finished that book. I certainly have not used the name given in the book since and must confess to not having noticed it either.

[paul@bolton]

3 hours ago, nigelcave said:

Oh dear: public humiliation! I must have got Burnwu(e)rk from somewhere, but all is lost in the mists of time, as it is twenty two years now since I finished that book. I certainly have not used the name given in the book since and must confess to not having noticed it either.

 

Sorry, Nigel, no offence intended. it is simply that I've read your book so many times and treated it as gospel. I wonder how many GWF members have stood at the edge of the Hawthorn Crater looking back across the valley and expounded knowledgeably (having swotted up on your book the night before) to friends and family about 'fields of fire' etc from the Burnwurk in the wood? Not to mention driving past that piece of scrubby land opposite the farm a hundred times without giving it a second glance or realising its significance 

 

No real problem though. I shall just move my expounding to a new location.

 

Roel22. You have the correct spelling but you obviously thought it was located in the wood also? Rather than up the hill well beyond the wood where Jack has it?

 

Paul

 

 

[roel22]

Hi Paul, I'm no expert on this subject whatsoever. This pic (and caption) came up on google...

 

Roel

 

[paul@bolton]

Hi Roel.

 

The guy at Google must have been reading Nigel's book!

 

Paul

[paul@bolton]

14 hours ago, genegwf said:

I am really enjoying this thread but I am confused! I have studied the maps in the Battleground Europe book as well as the one Jack Sheldon posted and I cannot work out where the Bergwerk is or was.

Would someone indicate the area of the Bergwerk and any other point of interest to help this uneducated forum member to become educated ? 

Thanks,

Gene

 

Hi Gene

As Jack's map is from the German archives, I suppose we have to give the German Army the benefit of the doubt as to where it was. They built it after all.

 

Assuming, therefore, that you're looking at Map 6 in the Battleground Europe guide, the Bergwerk is to the right of the arrow and 8.15 a.m. (indicating the Lancs Fusiliers 8.15 a.m. attack). Follow the dashed line to the edge of the map - the space where the last few dashes are is the Bergwerk position as I read it. If I'm wrong, I bet it won't take 22 years for me to be corrected .

 

Paul

 

 

[paul@bolton]

Just now, paul@bolton said:

 

Hi Gene

As Jack's map is from the German archives, I suppose we have to give the German Army the benefit of the doubt as to where it was. They built it after all.

 

Assuming, therefore, that you're looking at Map 6 in the Battleground Europe guide, the Bergwerk is to the right of the arrow and 8.15 a.m. (indicating the Lancs Fusiliers 8.15 a.m. attack). Follow the dashed line to the edge of the map - the space where the last few dashes are is the Bergwerk position as I read it. If I'm wrong, I bet it won't take 22 years for me to be corrected .

 

Paul

 

 

No doubt someone cleverer than me can take a screen shot from Google Earth from the Serre Road over the Redan Ridge and add it to the thread. Thanks.

 

Paul

[Jack Sheldon]

It was not in the woods. Here is a photo, taken from the history of RIR 99 showing it where it is marked on the map I posted earlier.

 

Jack

[Jack Sheldon]

Further to my last, though keep this quiet, otherwise I shall be in trouble with Nigel for not pressing on with the final chapter of 'Fighting the Somme', I have looked at the history of RIR 99 and lo! on pp 37-38 I came across this, referring to events in October 1914. 'To begin with 10th Coy was accommodated in two cow sheds in Beaumont. When on 17 and 19 October the enemy shelled Beaumont - we counted up to 98 shells a minute - and crater after crater appeared outside, the sheds were untouched. The farmers' sons taught the factory workers how to milk. Even during later shoots no shells hit, but then the cowshed dwellers were granted real security by an amazing discovery. A sentry spotted a collapsed passageway in a cellar. Sappers, according to Leutnant Vogel, cleared the blockage and came across a stairway. This led down six to eight metres to a long gallery from which others branched off. Once the engineer troop had widened the entrance, cleared out the gallery and broken out an entrance to the street to ensure ventilation, all of 10th Coy [circa 150 men] moved into the depths. Experienced miners [of which RIR 99, recruited from the Ruhr and surrounding areas, had plenty] propped and expanded the gallery, lined the walls and dug a third entrance. The first gallery, dubbed the 'Hall of Justice' served several purposes, with working space, an office and a sleeping area. In the centre the gallery widened to a circular hall. How often the company mustered there! and when the light from the candles in their niches in the chalk reflected light from the communion cup, when the joyful hymns of the warriors echoed around the vaults, while shells burst uselessly above, how deeply moving each individual soul found the church service.'

 

It must finally have been a big underground working - and right in the village.

 

Jack

[paul@bolton]

That's fascinating, Jack, and fits in with Bergwerk meaning mine (not the exploding type) in German. Not sure about Bergwerkhaus but presumably a mine building?

Looking at that position on Google street view, it must have dominated the entire area towards the Sunken Lane as well as all the way across the Redan Ridge. If that is a machine gun position to the right of the Bergwerk (MG?), it is perfectly sited to fire across the ridge.

 

One of your schwerpunkts?

 

Paul

[nigelcave]

Keep on with that Chapter, Jack.

 

Anyhow, I did quite a bit of investigation of the Bergwerk with Phillip Robinson some time ago (i.e. three or so years ago?) for our forthcoming book on The War Underground: The Somme - the second in the series after Vimy/Arras and long delayed - and got nowhere in terms of locating either this system or (reputed) others further into the village (we did ID one with no problem, on the Beaucurt Station Road - it is pretty obvious in any case, even if the entrance is well and truly filled in). Even the usually fairly trustworthy dousing came up with nothing. Most odd.

[paul@bolton]

On 08/09/2016 at 15:08, nigelcave said:

Keep on with that Chapter, Jack.

 

Anyhow, I did quite a bit of investigation of the Bergwerk with Phillip Robinson some time ago (i.e. three or so years ago?) for our forthcoming book on The War Underground: The Somme - the second in the series after Vimy/Arras and long delayed - and got nowhere in terms of locating either this system or (reputed) others further into the village (we did ID one with no problem, on the Beaucurt Station Road - it is pretty obvious in any case, even if the entrance is well and truly filled in). Even the usually fairly trustworthy dousing came up with nothing. Most odd.

 

Not surprised. I wouldn't have thought that throwing water over the locals would encourage them to cooperate. Have you tried buying them a beer?

 

Paul

[brummell]

Bergwerkhaus seems a good candidate for the cow shed referred to in the German account quoted by Mr Sheldon...?

 

 

- brummell

[nigelcave]

3 hours ago, paul@bolton said:

 

Not surprised. I wouldn't have thought that throwing water over the locals would encourage them to cooperate. Have you tried buying them a beer?

 

Paul

Quite - my spell check does not seem to like dowsing .... On the other hand, it is quite a good way (i.e. shoving a hose pipe spewing water at a fair rate down an 'interesting' hole in the ground) of getting an idea of the extent of a void, as we discovered when engaged in subsidence monitoring at Vimy.

[paul@bolton]

10 hours ago, nigelcave said:

Quite - my spell check does not seem to like dowsing .... On the other hand, it is quite a good way (i.e. shoving a hose pipe spewing water at a fair rate down an 'interesting' hole in the ground) of getting an idea of the extent of a void, as we discovered when engaged in subsidence monitoring at Vimy.

 

Sounds fun. I want your job.

 

Paul