Is Ypres Visible From Spanbroekmolen?

[PhilB]

It may not be relevant here but on the Fylde, in times past, places could be visible from a distance in dry periods but not in wet seasons. The  Fylde was a large area of moss which could absorb huge quantities of water so that the surface could rise several metres.

[Howard]

If you have Linesman on a PC (I don't so cannot check), you should be able to add a route between two points, right click on it and choose profile. Provided Linesman has the height data loaded (that is the bit I cannot check), it will show the height profile along the route and any hills in between from at ground level. It is not hard to add height of spires etc.

 

If anyone here has access to a GIS that can do a viewshed analysis, you can print a map showing what is visible from where at any starting height, i.e. trench periscope level for the war, height of observer now. Neither method will take account of trees etc. It is not a perfect method but gives some idea of visibility between points.

 

Howard

[Fattyowls]

7 hours ago, neverforget said:

Ah, so I was right but I was wrong.

Congratulations are in order to both of you in that case then. The photos clearly are not just "snaps", and their purposeful character would be obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse.

I still have the feeling that you are understating your part in the combined effort though somehow, remarkable though the lady clearly is.

 

I do understate my part hopefully for comic effect, but there is more than a grain of truth in this. I can illustrate the point with some more photos which hopefully won't take the thread too far off topic. What I tend to do these days is just to take a rapid series of photos at any location without a lot of thought, which is made possible with digital storage. Some of these can be spectacularly poor. I started to find that I was taking so long to compose a frame I wasn't actually taking in what I was looking at.

 

1 hour ago, neverforget said:

Pete. I sent a message outlining your query to someone I know who lives in Ypres. He is the chairman of the Last Post Association, and one of the most obliging gentlemen I have ever met. My son and I stayed at his apartment on our visit to Ypres for my 60th, and he went out of his way to make our stay as pleasant and informed as possible.

I copy and paste his reply below:

 

"Hi Steve. Yes of course I remember.

Spanbroekmolen is one of the high points. I am sure you see Vimy ridge from there on a clear day.

But I am not 100% sure you see Ypres spires. The heights of Wijtschate could be in between and spoil the view. Next time I am there I will have a look.

All the best, Ben."

 

That's dammed decent of you matey. I think Ben is right and the trees of the Petit Bois may have a part to play in this. He's also right about the Vimy ridge I think. I might be able to illustrate the point.

 

1 hour ago, PhilB said:

It may not be relevant here but on the Fylde, in times past, places could be visible from a distance in dry periods but not in wet seasons. The  Fylde was a large area of moss which could absorb huge quantities of water so that the surface could rise several metres.

 

Clay can behave in a similar manner but on a much smaller scale. My bit of the Lancashire coast has several similar areas of former mossland. Thanks Phil.

Edited 22 January , 2018 by Fattyowls
Catastrophic grammar

[Fattyowls]

Thanks Howard, that's another reason for me to get Linesman, I've been saying I will for ages now. In one of my former lives I would have been able to get the map, add a bit of graph paper and work it out with pencil in hand. We made our own fun in them days.

 

Pete.

[Howard]

3 minutes ago, Fattyowls said:

Thanks Howard, that's another reason for me to get Linesman, I've been saying I will for ages now. In one of my former lives I would have been able to get the map, add a bit of graph paper and work it out with pencil in hand. We made our own fun in them days.

 

Pete.

Linesman does not have its own software, it uses Memory Map. I have Memory Map with UK OS map licences so here is a surrogate question, is the pub at Havering-atte-Bower visible from the pub at Lambourne End? Answer, no, there is a hill in the way. The blue line is a Memory Map "route" and I exaggerated the vertical axis in the profile.

 

Howard

 

[Fattyowls]

Howard, I recognised the map immediately; my aunt used to live in Pilgrim's Hatch over Brentwood way. We may even have been to one of the pubs quoted for lunch......

 

Pete.

[brianmorris547]

4 hours ago, Fattyowls said:

Thanks Howard, that's another reason for me to get Linesman, I've been saying I will for ages now. In one of my former lives I would have been able to get the map, add a bit of graph paper and work it out with pencil in hand. We made our own fun in them days.

 

Pete.

That was my first thought too.

Brian

[Howard]

4 hours ago, Fattyowls said:

Howard, I recognised the map immediately; my aunt used to live in Pilgrim's Hatch over Brentwood way. We may even have been to one of the pubs quoted for lunch......

 

Pete.

This is a viewshed using Global Mapper, set from Spanbroekmolen with the observer 2 metres above ground, the red areas are visible with the height in Ypres also at 2 metres, i.e. more or less ground level. There is also a line of sight to St. Martins Cathedral but I set that height also at 2 metres not its full height of 102 metres. It takes no account at all of buildings or trees and only gives an approximate idea of what can or cannot be seen.

Trawling through the IWM collection of maps for the Mapping the Front project, it became clear that such analysis was very important, there were all sorts of attempts to show the topography from contours, official and hand drawn hypsographic tints, hachuring and even Haig's 3D maps made by pasting many maps together and cutting round the contours. From the collection it does not look like a "good" solution was found.

 

Howard

 

[Fattyowls]

Howard, that is a stupendous piece of work, and since the sight line passes directly over the trees of the Petit Bois my guess is that the spire of the cathedral might just be visible. My only quibble with the whole magnificent exercise is that I'm never going to be able to have a viewpoint 2 metres above ground level unless I take a large box or a stepladder with me......

 

Pete.

 

 

[Howard]

20 minutes ago, Fattyowls said:

Howard, that is a stupendous piece of work, and since the sight line passes directly over the trees of the Petit Bois my guess is that the spire of the cathedral might just be visible. My only quibble with the whole magnificent exercise is that I'm never going to be able to have a viewpoint 2 metres above ground level unless I take a large box or a stepladder with me......

 

Pete.

 

 

As guides will tell you, to get a true Great War view, you should get down on the ground!

 

Howard

[Fattyowls]

Wise words mate, endorsed by the late great Richard Holmes no less. At least once on the odyssey around the craters I looked round to see my friend Marilyne following just that advice to get the best angle for a photo.

 

Pete.

[nigelcave]

10 hours ago, neverforget said:

 

 

"Hi Steve. Yes of course I remember.

Spanbroekmolen is one of the high points. I am sure you see Vimy ridge from there on a clear day.

But I am not 100% sure you see Ypres spires. The heights of Wijtschate could be in between and spoil the view. Next time I am there I will have a look.

All the best, Ben."

I am not so sure that you can see Vimy Ridge - or, to put it another way, the Memorial on it, from Spanbroekmolen. I think it might be masked; you can, however, definitely see a good long way along the NDdeLorette ridge.

[Fattyowls]

By coincidence I was just about to start messing around in Google Earth to try work that out. It must be visible from somewhere on the Lorette spur as you say. To try and illustrate the point this is looking north from the Canadian Memorial  (the whole landscape does not slope towards Belgium by the way, that's operator error) - If I come to any conclusions I'll snip the relevant section out (and try and correct the horizon issue).

 

 

[Fattyowls]

I've had a play about in Google Earth and put three lines on the landscape. The southern origin is the Canadian Memorial at Vimy and the left hand red line joins it to the Kemmelberg, the middle line joins it to Spanbroekmolen and the right line to Messines Church. The Double Crassier slagheaps create a reference as below.

 

 

Plotting these very roughly on a portion of the right side of the photo in the previous post gives you this:

 

 

To me the surprising one is how far apart Spanbroekmolen and Messines appear - but I've rechecked the lines and they are correct - see below.

 

 

And the origins:

 

 

At least it kept me out of mischief for half an hour or so.

 

Pete.

 

 

 

[neverforget]

I don't expect that this will be very helpful, but this is a photograph that my son took looking in the same direction, when we were at the Vimy ridge memorial.

[Fattyowls]

Nice horizontal horizon, I'm impressed. Is that your good self photographing the memorial next to the statue or just a random member of the public?

 

Pete.

 

 

[neverforget]

Just now, Fattyowls said:

Nice horizontal horizon, I'm impressed. Is that your good self photographing the memorial next to the statue or just a random member of the public?

 

Pete.

 

 

Blimey that's a good spot Pete, it is indeed. My lad took hundreds of photos and fortunately I managed to avoid spoiling most of them. 

[Fattyowls]

Just to wrap this one up can I first up say thank you for all the contributions; it's answered my original question and much more. I'm even going to try a bit of viewshedding (if that is a word), except that my first try was disallowed because I wasn't 2m above the ground. I think this is discrimination against the vertically challenged but what can you do?

 

To follow on from the whole 'what makes a good photo good' sub-debate I offer this as the natural progression of the photos I've posted above. This shows the two remaining Kruisstraat craters with Spanbroekmolen behind the farmhouse on the centre horizon.

 

 

This is three photos welded together, and illustrates rules one and two of taking photos for panoramas: 1. Don't move and 2. Take them as quickly as possible. I have clearly not read the rules. It illustrates the point which I've tried to make that if you point the camera anywhere around here and keep it vaguely horizontal the history makes the photo.

 

Just for reference the landscape was a bit less tidy in times past:

 

 

This is a German aerial I believe which I think I found on the NZ war memorial site. The photo was taken from the edge of the left hand crater. The rightmost crater was filled in long ago.

 

Pete.

 

[neverforget]

So. Dare one ask if Ypres is in fact visible from Spanbroekmolen, allowing the use of a beer- crate or similar height enhancing tool? 

P.S. My friend Benoit may well come back with a definitive answer, but joking aside, he can boast a height of at least 6 feet 6" which makes him easy to spot at any of the Menin Gate Last Post occasions. (Seen below showing me the Old Contemptibles standard he acquired at no little cost)

[Fattyowls]

That's just rubbing it in. I'm going to go off in a huff and watch Yeovil v Manu.

 

Pete.

P.S. Joking aside that is a nice bit of cloth.

[Howard]

16 hours ago, Fattyowls said:

This is three photos welded together, and illustrates rules one and two of taking photos for panoramas: 1. Don't move and 2. Take them as quickly as possible. I have clearly not read the rules. It illustrates the point which I've tried to make that if you point the camera anywhere around here and keep it vaguely horizontal the history makes the photo.

If you PM me the three full resolution (or more) photos, I can see if I can work some magic on them.

 

Howard

 

Edited 27 January , 2018 by Howard

[Fattyowls]

On 1/27/2018 at 11:00, Howard said:

If you PM me the three full resolution (or more) photos, I can see if I can work some magic on them.

 

Howard

 

 

Thanks again Howard, I'll try and find the originals. If you can magic them I'd be very interested in how you do it.

 

Pete.

[Fattyowls]

I eventually found the originals, sent them to Howard and abracadabra and hey presto this is the magic result. As Eric Morcambe would say; "You can't see the join". Thanks Howard

 

Pete.

[neverforget]

36 minutes ago, Fattyowls said:

I eventually found the originals, sent them to Howard and abracadabra and hey presto this is the magic result. As Eric Morcambe would say; "You can't see the join". Thanks Howard

 

Pete.

Great job fellas. Does this answer your question Pete?

P.S. Eric Morecambe also said that if he'd been born in Clacton, his name would have been Eric Clacton. Hey hey!

[Fattyowls]

2 hours ago, neverforget said:

Does this answer your question Pete?

 

Nope, I will need to stand just to the left of the farm on the middle horizon and maybe walk around the small prominence it stands on. I'm starting to plan a trip to do just that......

 

Pete.