Congreve Walk Trench

[notimetoulouse]

Hi everyone, may I ask some advice please?

Thanks to previous help from within the forum, and due diligence at Kew and Bury, I've thoroughly researched the war service of my grandfather who was 'derbied' into the 2/5 Lancs Fusiliers just prior to conscription in late 1915. He suffered a GSW through and through to his face on the morning of 31st July 1917 on the way to Pond Farm (according to his sole surviving daughter who thinks 'it was something to do with a carpet' - which I've taken to be Carpet Trench, but can find nothing in the 2/5 WD that mentions it).

As a ex thirty year soldier myself, I am absolutely drawn to the centenary of the commencement of 3rd Ypres later this month,  and as such will be over at Back2Front for 5 days. My aim is to be at the jumping off point for 2/5 LF (Congreve Walk Trench) and at 0630 100 years to the day, begin to move across ground to Pond Farm, ending up at Schuler Farm.

After four visits, I'm fairly au fait with the local environs by now, but could someone help me with the location  (generally) of Congreve Walk vis a vis the St Jean of today? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated, this is a once in a lifetime thing. 

Thanks in advance.

[mebu]

The trenches are shown here:

 

Hope it helps. 

Peter

 

 

[jonbem]

Hi

the McMaster search gave me this result which matches the top map shown in previous post

Trench Name	Nearest Place	Map Sheet Number	Map Squares
Congreve Walk	St Julien	28NW2	C 27 d, 28 c

Edited 5 July , 2017 by jonbem

[notimetoulouse]

Thanks Mebu, thanks Jonbem. I'll drag up Google earth and try to fit this onto the modern St Jean.

[jonbem]

you could do that on the NLS site with the opacity slider

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16&lat=50.8656&lon=2.9060&layers=101464903&b=1

 

[notimetoulouse]

Goodness me Jonbem, I had no idea this beast existed! What a really useful bit of kit. Many thanks.

Jeff

[jonbem]

Glad to help. The more we can share the knowledge the better. That way we honour our forbears sacrifice.

[brianmorris547]

A new one on me as well, I must have a play with it.

A good synopsis of 31/07/1917 in the Bn WD and narrative in the WD of 164 Infantry Brigade, which shows that some of 2/5 LFs got as far as Wurst Farm and Aviatak before having to fall back. The map quoted in the papers is 28 NW 2 and 28 NE 1 Edition 6a which is on the NLS system corrected to 30/06/1917.

Brian 

Edited 5 July , 2017 by brianmorris547

[tMapper]

Hi, you can see how it looks on Google Maps today, plus distance and elevation profiles, from www.tmapper.com.  For example, if you walk from Carpet Trench (start) to Pond Farm (finish), it looks like this - just enter the trench map co-ordinates others have supplied on the home page:

 

[Yorke Scarlett]

Notimetoulouse,

 

I will be in front of you that morning - following in the footsteps of the 1/10th KLR - look out for a green baseball cap!

 

 

[Blue Dragoon]

On 05/07/2017 at 17:07, mebu said:

The trenches are shown here:

 

Hope it helps. 

 

Peter

 

Great find, helps me too.  Whats the reference for this trench map Peter?  In addition to CAPRICORN trench,  SPREE and POND FARMs (which this shows) also  trying to identify , location of FORT HILL,  CANVAS and CAPITAL Trenches plus the STEENBEEK stream/river.

[Blue Dragoon]

cancel!  Seen!