Excavations south of Bapaume??

[mutley]

Whilst driving down to Thiepval on Saturday I noticed some excavations on the left hand side of the D929 between Bapaume and Le Sars, anyone any idea what is going on?

 

Daz

[Michelle Young]

I was taking to forum member steandpaula a couple of weeks ago who mentioned an archaeological dig somewhere in the vicinity 

 

Michelle 

[EAST YORKSHIRE]

I drove past on a couple of occasions recently, I did notice they were digging small trenches and then putting the spoil into wheelbarrows,  some men were then sifting through it to see if there was anything of interest, so maybe that is the archeological dig Michelle is on about, Ian.

[Ken Lees]

I'll have a look over the next couple of days and report back

[mutley]

Thanks, it looked a sizeable project.

[MelPack]

If it is close to the Lidl supermarket then it will be the foundations of the St Albin Priory.

 

Report in French on this link:

http://archeologie.pasdecalais.fr/Archeologie/Explorer/Le-prieure-Saint-Albin-de-Bapaume

[303man]

Passed it on Tuesday right on the side of the road just past the Bapume roundabout, looks like all backfilled holes from the past (Great War?)  and soil marks have spray paint around their perimeter for investigation,  about the size of a football pitch scraped back at present with some slightly deeper pits.

Edited 14 October , 2016 by 303man

[mutley]

1 hour ago, 303man said:

Passed it on Tuesday right on the side of the road just past the Bapume roundabout, looks like all backfilled holes from the past (Great War?)  and soil marks have spray paint around their perimeter for investigation,  about the size of a football pitch scraped back at present with some slightly deeper pits.

 

Yep thats the same place.

 

[303man]

Looking at the trench maps of the area, it looks like there were trenches there 1916 - 1917 with not much change in layout.

[horrocks]

There was some kind of excavation on the right hand side of the road if heading towards Sars from Bapaume this time last year, just past the roundabout. A long strip parallel with the road was opened up, perhaps 200 metres in length. It is all back to fields now.

 

I wondered at the time if there might simply be a road widening scheme taking place.

Edited 16 October , 2016 by horrocks

[Dawley Jockey]

I had a wander around the area a couple of weeks ago whilst on the Somme and it looked like an archeological dig, it was marked out like one, but we got the impression that it was not First War related as some spoil had been pushed up nearly to the concrete bunker that still exists nearby. In that spoil was a mass of communication cabling also odds and sods like parts of a German gas mask and rusty mess tins etc but this had been left strewn around. This just seemed to point to a non First War dig only my thoughts though.

 

[trenchtrotter]

This was the spoil heap in mid Sept.

[steandpaula]

Hi all, as Michelle says earlier, we were on the site at the end of September and had a good chat with the archaeologist on site, Apparently there is to be a silo built on the site but, as it was a known Roman and Celtic site, they had been given six months to study it. He took us round the site and showed us the Roman and Celtic dwellings and artifacts found. He then got onto the WW1 period, as the site sits on the German trenches from 1918 and the "only British concrete bunker on the Somme" he said, this is in danger of being demolished when the site is developed! As the picture above indicates, he says they had found over 400 pieces of munitions that had to be dealt with by the authorities. He also showed us the skeleton of a German soldier that had been uncovered in the excavations just behind the trench line, along with 7 others. Some had been laid out head to toe ( by comrades?) others had been placed on top of each other in a haphazard fashion, in what seemed like a shell crater ( British?). You could see the trenches clearly and filled in craters. All in all a really interesting couple of hours, seeing the battle field from a different perspective, as well as the Roman and Celtic areas.

Ste  

[chaz]

 were in the area last week, riding around from Frevent to Abbeville then across to Amiens then up to Bapaume then back home. Im sure we passed a dig on the side of the road but pretty sure it was not the one above as not in such a built up area. any ideas  if any more digs in the area?

as a clue it wasn't like the picture above but more of a field with various patches of differing size and depth and not as close to the adjacent built up surround, more of a open field? 

[steandpaula]

Hi Chaz, the area we are talking about is not a built up area and is a field next to the main road from Bapaume to Albert, you could pull up on the verge and the field is literally outside your door. The picture in the earlier post from Trenchtrotter is of the British bunker with the finds from the dig piled up against it (barbed wire and shell cases mainly).

Regards,

Ste

[Blincodave]

On 11/1/2016 at 20:46, steandpaula said:

Hi all, as Michelle says earlier, we were on the site at the end of September and had a good chat with the archaeologist on site, Apparently there is to be a silo built on the site but, as it was a known Roman and Celtic site, they had been given six months to study it. He took us round the site and showed us the Roman and Celtic dwellings and artifacts found. He then got onto the WW1 period, as the site sits on the German trenches from 1918 and the "only British concrete bunker on the Somme" he said, this is in danger of being demolished when the site is developed! As the picture above indicates, he says they had found over 400 pieces of munitions that had to be dealt with by the authorities. He also showed us the skeleton of a German soldier that had been uncovered in the excavations just behind the trench line, along with 7 others. Some had been laid out head to toe ( by comrades?) others had been placed on top of each other in a haphazard fashion, in what seemed like a shell crater ( British?). You could see the trenches clearly and filled in craters. All in all a really interesting couple of hours, seeing the battle field from a different perspective, as well as the Roman and Celtic areas.

Ste  

Must have been quite an experience. Would be a pity if the bunker was demolished