Has Anyone Got A Photograph Of..........

[Knotty]

I meant Dartmoor, thanks for not saying 😁, corrected now.

[Don Regiano]

Continuing on the Albert theme, taken on a very hot Friday afternoon in June.  Temp was 30+ deg C and, just after getting back in the car, the sky went really black and we had a REAL thunderstorm and power cut for about 4 hours

 

 

[Knotty]

And another taken from the nearby arboretum.

[frev]

...and a full view of the mural

 

[Marilyne]

Never saw the mural before… have to go take a look next week!

 

M/

[Knotty]

Hi M

My pics of the mural are 5 years old, so hopefully it is still there.

 

John

[Fattyowls]

On 01/07/2020 at 09:05, Sapper D. said:

R.E. Grave, Railway Wood (2011)

 

Thanks Sapper, it's a little bit of the salient that I know reasonably well too, and I have some 'looking back' views which I'll try to find. While the concentration on the Somme is appropriate for 1st July I didn't want your contribution to be missed.....

 

Hope all is well with you

 

Pete.

[Fattyowls]

18 hours ago, Tom Tulloch-Marshall said:

You'd have thought they could have found a more scenic place to put their Divisional Memorial

 

Good one Tom, both photo and caption; you can almost hear the swoosh of the blades. Does your camera have one of those pull out and twist thingy to allow you to frame a photo from a low angle? I'm thinking about investing in a new camera and the moveable viewer might come in handy now I come to think about it.

 

Pete.

Edited 2 July , 2020 by Fattyowls
Prolix

[Tom Tulloch-Marshall]

7 hours ago, Fattyowls said:

… you can almost hear the swoosh of the blades. Does your camera have one of those pull out and twist thingy to allow you to frame a photo from a low angle? ...

 

It's actually quite disconcerting as the blades make a sort of building-up "coming to hit you" noise and you do get a feeling that they are above you when you are in the road in front of the Guards Memorial. Poor little thing is now completely visually overwhelmed by the monsters.

Tom

[Fattyowls]

43 minutes ago, Tom Tulloch-Marshall said:

Poor little thing is now completely visually overwhelmed by the monsters.

 

I never visited it before they went up; it's a corner of the battlefield I don't know at all. Good to know that somebody else likes Herrick though.

 

Pete.

[Tom Tulloch-Marshall]

I've always felt this to be a "sad" cemetery given its present surroundings - today >

 

 

and Gourock Trench as it was when first formalised >

 

[Fattyowls]

14 hours ago, Tom Tulloch-Marshall said:

I've always felt this to be a "sad" cemetery given its present surroundings

 

It is; in the middle of an industrial estate probably means that only the relatives of the 40 identified casualties would have a reason to go there; the visitors book would be illuminating. I have an interest in a man killed nearby who is in Faubourg d'Amiens and I've long wanted to explore what is now part of the greater Arras metro area to see if I have any sense of the location. On the evidence of Gourock Trench then it seems unlikely, but I hope to be able to visit the little cemetery to add an entry in the book.

 

Pete.

[Michelle Young]

I think it's one of the cemeteries without a visitor book. Always try to visit if passing. 

[Fattyowls]

Sapper's photo of the RE Grave above sent me searching through mine; this is a zoomed view of it from Perth/China Wall cemetery looking back up to the ridge. I think the trees on the left above the farm buildings are Railway Wood and the British front line. I think the railway which gave it's name to the wood ran past the front of the cemetery before crossing the Menin Road at Hellfire Corner which is just out of picture to the left.

 

[Fattyowls]

3 minutes ago, Michelle Young said:

I think it's one of the cemeteries without a visitor book. Always try to visit if passing. 

 

That's cheery news (the visiting as opposed to the absence of the book). I'm pleased but not surprised.

 

Pete.

[Don Regiano]

1 hour ago, Fattyowls said:

Sapper's photo of the RE Grave above sent me searching through mine; this is a zoomed view of it from Perth/China Wall cemetery looking back up to the ridge. I think the trees on the left above the farm buildings are Railway Wood and the British front line. I think the railway which gave it's name to the wood ran past the front of the cemetery before crossing the Menin Road at Hellfire Corner which is just out of picture to the left.

 

 

and it looks as though you have nicely caught an amateur radio station to the right Pete.  I didn't know you were in to that - I can send you a photo of my aerial if you like.  Or are the tv signals so bad that you need a big mast and antenna to receive anything?

 

Reg

Edited 3 July , 2020 by Don Regiano

[Knotty]

Another one of those awards then Pete😁

2 minutes ago, Don Regiano said:

Or are the tv signals so bad that you need a big mast and antenna to receive anything?

 

[Fattyowls]

Is that what it is? I've often wondered. As a piece of electrical equipment that detracts from a view, I think it qualifies for entry into the Knotty's. And there's me thinking that the photo gives an impression of the importance of the German position on the ridge. Just to make sure you japesters and the funny stuff doesn't get the thread closed this is a dodgy panorama looking back from the Liverpool Scottish Memorial a few meters from the RE Grave which gives you a sense of why the position was so fought over both above and below ground. Perth/China Wall and my viewpoint from the previous one is marked by four tall trees on the right horizon.

 

 

 

 

Edited 3 July , 2020 by Fattyowls
pants punctuation

[Knotty]

Joking aside, I see where you are coming from Pete, it is difficult to visualise what is there on the ground now, and what was on the ground before and during the fighting. I think this has been commented on earlier in the thread probably by your good self.

[Fattyowls]

No need to set joking aside matey, there is a whole sub theme developing here about modern technological paraphernalia getting in the way of the view, and long may it continue.

On the subject of what the ground looked like if you have access to a copy of Peter Barton's panoramic history there is a segment of a panorama of the area and a later aerial photo which show the ground before and after all the mining. The trees behind the RE Grave weren't there and over to the right was Y Wood, now gone which appears in the famous photos of the Liverpool Scottish attack on 16th June 1915, when a chap called Chavasse won the MC. This is the view today from the corner of Railway Wood.

 

Pete.

 

 

 

 

[Knotty]

1 hour ago, Fattyowls said:

On the subject of what the ground looked like if you have access to a copy of Peter Barton's panoramic history

Do bears **** in the Wood 😁, will dig out later. That is the one with the CD showing the panoramas inside the back cover?

[Fattyowls]

35 minutes ago, Knotty said:

Do bears **** in the Wood 😁, will dig out later. That is the one with the CD showing the panoramas inside the back cover?

 

The very one, although I am not sure my copy still has the CD's; pages 116 and 117 I think.

If you turn through 180° where I took the one above you see this view:

The road follows the line of the railway from which the wood takes its name, Helfire Corner is just beyond the large farm building on the left and the spires of the city are on the centre horizon.

 

 

[Knotty]

Are those fence pickets made from cut up old railway track, or am I just over imagining?

Got Barton’s battlefield’s panoramas out and still have the CD’s, will take some time tomorrow to see if they are still working. If they do the next thing to do is see if they copy😇

[Don Regiano]

6 hours ago, Fattyowls said:

Is that what it is? I've often wondered. As a piece of electrical equipment that detracts from a view, I think it qualifies for entry into the Knotty's. And there's me thinking that the photo gives an impression of the importance of the German position on the ridge. Just to make sure you japesters and the funny stuff doesn't get the thread closed this is a dodgy panorama looking back from the Liverpool Scottish Memorial a few meters from the RE Grave which gives you a sense of why the position was so fought over both above and below ground. Perth/China Wall and my viewpoint from the previous one is marked by four tall trees on the right horizon.

 

 

 

 

 

No, I wasn't joking or trying to get the thread closed Pete!  I really do have a mast and radio antenna in my garden (with planning permission and certainly not as obtrusive as the Belgian one.

 

Railway Wood - start point for 8 South Lancs at 3rd Ypres when my relative DoW in August 1917 and is buried in the row next to Noel Chavasse.

 

Reg

[Fattyowls]

48 minutes ago, Don Regiano said:

No, I wasn't joking or trying to get the thread closed Pete!

 

I knew you weren't joking Reg, To paraphrase M to 007 in Goldfinger - you never joke about your antennae....

 

 

Is this is where the 8th South Lancs would have gone forward? A panoramic with Railway Wood behind me looking over the little swale to Westhoek, with Zonnebeke church on the horizon....