Wind Turbines at Ginchy?

[Ken Lees]

On 24/04/2019 at 10:20, LEUZEWOOD said:

Does anybody have any recent photos of the turbines in the Ginchy area they would be good enough to post please? Particularly interested in the impact on the Leuze/Bouleaux Woods area. 

 

Many Thanks

I intend cycling around this area over the weekend, weather permitting. I'll see what I can do. 

[LEUZEWOOD]

30 minutes ago, Ken Lees said:

I intend cycling around this area over the weekend, weather permitting. I'll see what I can do. 

 

Thank you Ken, appreciated if possible. Hoping to get over myself again this year, but as yet unplanned.

 

[AdeB]

This is from the Les Beoufs Rd about 400m north of Ginchy looking SE ish. I believe Leuzewood is in the distance to the left of the photo

[AdeB]

Looking north along the Les Boeufs Rd. The second turbine is 'beside' the Guards memorial

 

[AdeB]

From the Guards memorial looking south to Ginchy. Leuzewood is out of shot to the left of the photo. Trying to pick up the ground that my grandfather attacked over on 15 Sept 1916.

Ken. My son and I cycled the area earlier this month. Hope you managed to do the same but without the biting NE head wind we had seemingly all the way round!

[Ken Lees]

14 hours ago, AdeB said:

 

Ken. My son and I cycled the area earlier this month. Hope you managed to do the same but without the biting NE head wind we had seemingly all the way round!

 

Rain all weekend and wind meant no cycling, but I can cycle around this area anytime, so perhaps this week sometime. 

[Don Regiano]

1 hour ago, Ken Lees said:

Rain all weekend and wind meant no cycling, but I can cycle around this area anytime, so perhaps this week sometime. 

 I will try not to knock you off your bikes later this week Ken!

 

Reg

[LEUZEWOOD]

16 hours ago, AdeB said:

This is from the Les Beoufs Rd about 400m north of Ginchy looking SE ish. I believe Leuzewood is in the distance to the left of the photo



 

Thank you for posting. Just getting my bearings - it would appear that only two of the planned (5/6?) turbines in this area have been erected to date? From previous posts and my last visit (2016), I believe works were planned/already underway on sites near the quadrilateral just to the east of Ginchy, and the Combles road close to the Dickens memorial? 

 

Hoping to get over later this year to check it all out myself - ironically the turbine planned near the quadrilateral may well be a helpful landmark to roughly 'visualise' the German front line from the edge of Leuze Wood in September 1916.

 

Cheers, Tom.

[AdeB]

Hello Tom

There are at least 6 turbines; 5 east of the Les Beoufs Rd & 1 to the west. I couldn't say how they relate to the Quad. or Dickens memorial.  This photo is at a similar location to that in you you have put in your post but looking toward the E/NE. Leuzewood may be the trees at the extreme right of the photo

[LEUZEWOOD]

2 hours ago, AdeB said:

Hello Tom

There are at least 6 turbines; 5 east of the Les Beoufs Rd & 1 to the west. I couldn't say how they relate to the Quad. or Dickens memorial.  This photo is at a similar location to that in you you have put in your post but looking toward the E/NE. Leuzewood may be the trees at the extreme right of the photo

 

 

Thank you AdeB. I believe that's Bouleaux Wood to the right, therefore I would assume that the turbine to the far right is roughly in the location of the Ginchy Telegraph and the next one to its left the Quadrilateral.

[horrocks]

There's one up the track beyond the Dicken's memorial, and one just across the road from the Quadrilaterel, below the 'Straight Trench' track up to the Guards Memorial. I think the planning was for 8 in all. They are absolutely enormous. The photographs seem to betray no hint of beauty in them.

 

Having said that, the pylons don't help.

Edited 30 April , 2019 by horrocks

[chaz]

We were driving around yesterday, yes the windmills are big but don't have cables hanging or as many pylons, also thank god they are not like the English covering the fields with solar panels. I would say probably the best option, you have to respect the needs of the area , they could be fracking!

[Michael Thomson]

I've been following this thread with interest. It is indeed sad and somewhat inappropriate in my humble opinion to place huge structures like these in such close proximity to a place of remembrance. 

 

The Guards' Memorial and surrounding battlefields, like all other places of remembrance , is a place of historical and cultural significance, if only seen as such by a portion of the population. These places and their surroundings deserve to be protected and preerved as best as is possible.

 

There was a debate that was ongoing for years (a decade at least) over the planned building of a wind farm across the one end of the purported Agincourt battlefield site. I believe it was successfully stopped or postponed.

 

One of the arguments in favour of building the wind farm and in reply to the assertion that it was a place of historical significance stated that if every battlefield in northern or western France had to be preserved, there would be very little land on which modern day necessities woukd be able to be built. 

 

I don't quite agree as northern France is vast and largely open farmland. 

 

At the heart of the matter is the stark reality that to many, our shared history has very little meaning. 

Edited 2 May , 2019 by Michael Thomson
Spelling

[chaz]

6 hours ago, Michael Thomson said:

 

I don't quite agree as northern France is vast and largely open farmland. 

 

At the heart of the matter is the stark reality that to many, our shared history has very little meaning. 

Might be farmland but it's feeding many people, as I've said before, solar panels as an option in fields like Wiltshire has lower impact on what is below ground but has major eyesore on landscape and kills off grass under. 

 

Shared history will will have even less meaning a generation or two in the future when us over sixties are gone. As for Azincourt and  Crecy there is little to tell the visitor passing about its history apart from one sign and a few cut out figures on the side of the road, 

more could be done for those visiting that do not go to the major sites, I have known a few car loads that just visit family graves then leave 

[gip65]

We visited NFD Memorial at Gueudecourt about two weeks ago, and I can confirm there are preliminary works involving huge amounts  of soil being cleared within a few hundred metres of the memorial, which in turn looks like they are preparing to add another wind turbine, to run in line with the current ones which run along the ridge of the Transloy.  I am pretty sure the next time we go, maybe later this year, or early next year,..there will be a turbine immediately behind the memorial,..completely spoiling any photos you wish to take of the memorial.

[horrocks]

The Canadians had succesfully appealed against earlier proposals for turbines there. It would seem that nothing can apparently stop the march of these vast triffids.

 

I assume that the excavations will miraculously fail to find any human remains there, just as they managed not to do so at Ginchy in several locations that were particularly thickly sewn with the fallen, even by Somme standards.

Edited 31 May , 2019 by horrocks

[Frajohn]

On 31/05/2019 at 12:49, horrocks said:

 

 

I assume that the excavations will miraculously fail to find any human remains there, just as they managed not to do so at Ginchy in several locations that were particularly thickly sewn with the fallen, even by Somme standards.

 

Horrocks

In recent months there have been several re-burials of soldiers who were discovered during the excavations for the turbines.

 

[andrew pugh]

Good Afternoon

Have they erected any wind turbines through the Verdun battlefields and areas?

Regards

Andy

[nigelcave]

23 hours ago, andrew pugh said:

Good Afternoon

Have they erected any wind turbines through the Verdun battlefields and areas?

Regards

Andy

Very few - I have seen a couple just east of the Argonne forest; and some more south west of Verdun. I have seen none in the Verdun area proper, nor, so far as I can recall, on any part of the Verdun battlefield. Mind you, there is so much forestry involved in that zone so that this should not a be a surprise.

[Sly]

Hello,

the region "Hauts de France" (which is Picardie + Nord Pas-de-Calais) has one of the highest concentration of windmills in France. 

The figures (dated October 2018) are:

 

in the Somme: 960 windmills

in the Aisne: 540 windmills

in the Pas-de-Calais: 504 windmills

in the Oise: 271 windmills

in the Nord: 131 windmills

And more are coming soon...

Sly

 

[horrocks]

On 02/06/2019 at 15:20, Frajohn said:

 

Horrocks

In recent months there have been several re-burials of soldiers who were discovered during the excavations for the turbines.

 

 

Good to hear it, but my assumption wasn't mere speculation - I wrote to the CWGC, and they replied saying that they knew nothing of the erection of the turbines, and that they had not been notified of any remains having been found. This was last year, in the earlier stages of this thread, but when the excavations were already complete and the footings were being poured.

[Don Regiano]

3 hours ago, horrocks said:

 

Good to hear it, but my assumption wasn't mere speculation - I wrote to the CWGC, and they replied saying that they knew nothing of the erection of the turbines, and that they had not been notified of any remains having been found. This was last year, in the earlier stages of this thread, but when the excavations were already complete and the footings were being poured.

 

Presumably, they changed their view more recently:

 

 

[horrocks]

Interesting. As far as I am aware there are no actual turbines in the line of the attack onto Guillemont - they are all behind and beyond Ginchy. There was extensive entrenching to place cabling along the edges of the roads though, I think reaching as far as the junction beside the Light Division memorial behind Guillemont.

[Pieter Hartog]

these pictures were taken June 21st 2019 - location exactly 500 m due east of the Caribou Monument, seen in direction west to east (towards Le Transloy)

[serreroad]

I don't really have anything to add that hasn't already been said by others, but I can add some pictures taken earlier this week. 

FWIW, I am generally in favour of them, and I live in Mid-Wales where we have a lot of them!

As far as the Hogsback turbines are concerned:

Pros:

They are IMHO elegant structures.

They are a lot more attractive than the ugly HT pylons that disfigure this end of the battlefield. 

They provide a good reference point from other parts of the battlefield, ie you can now identify the ridge from Thiepval and beyond. 

They can easily be removed at some point in the future, if technology renders them surplus to requirement. 

Power has to come from somewhere and they are a damn sight more attractive and less destructive than a gas, coal or nuclear power station!

Cons:

The turbines at the Guards Monument and at Dickens' Cross are too close to the respective sites. The one opposite the Guards Monument dwarfs the monument itself and the one at Dickens' Cross is too intrusive in a place of quiet commemoration. 

There are, however, two positives to add to the above.

1) The turbine at Dickens' Cross has a good gravelled track which now allows easy access to the cross 365 days a year. That should help more people to visit it?

2) The organisation responsible has "helped" (I don't know whether that was financial or practical help) with the new foundations for the Meakin Memorial, which is finally to be rescued from its perilously position in  the middle of an intensively cultivated field. One of the pics shows the new foundation slab at the side of the road. 

PS. I've just realised that the pic of the turbine opposite the Guards Monument is on my camera, not on the phone, so unable to post until I get home...

Edited 6 July , 2019 by serreroad