Paul Reed Posted 17 December , 2002 Share Posted 17 December , 2002 As I mentioned on a previous thread, this site has recently been sold and the sign erected on it indicates a house will be built there - they'll certainly have a deep cellar!!!! Another part of the old battlefields gone forever; although the crater was filled in around 1977/78, the white scar in the chalk was visible every time they ploughed. Good job Richard Dunning purchased Lochnagar all those years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Hill 60 Posted 17 December , 2002 Share Posted 17 December , 2002 Paul - Are you sure its a cellar they'll have or the 'mother-of-all-swimming-pools'? Seriously though, Richard showed a good piece of thinking when he saved Lochnagar. It's a shame I'm not rich enough to buy up some of these places for future generations to visit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Lines Posted 19 December , 2002 Share Posted 19 December , 2002 If anyone is interested there is a "friends of lochngar" website at www.friendsoflochnagar.co.uk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve_McGarry Posted 4 January , 2003 Share Posted 4 January , 2003 Richard does an excellent talk about lochngar.... If you can get him to your WFA branch then do.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedley Malloch Posted 4 January , 2003 Share Posted 4 January , 2003 I would not have thought that a filled in mine crater was a suitable site to build a house. I am not an engineer, but I would have thought that there would be all sorts of problems in the future with subsidence and shifting foundations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Reed Posted 4 January , 2003 Author Share Posted 4 January , 2003 Nor me, but there is an estate agent sign on the road border for the field where it is situated noting it has been sold and that shortly a house will be built there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest alsaco Posted 30 January , 2003 Share Posted 30 January , 2003 In France, a "permis de construire" is needed to build house or other building. It is delivered by the Maire of the parish Recent accidents, inundations, movements in the soil have made Maires a little more cautious in delivery Opposition is open to all interests. Historical or archeologic value is admitted. Explaining danger to the future owner may also be productive An action, signified to the local Press by representative of soldiers having fought there could stop the construction, or open way to municipal musée on the site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Reed Posted 31 January , 2003 Author Share Posted 31 January , 2003 You are quite right re. the permis, but in my experience here on the Somme they rarely think about what might be down there - in the land opposite me they built a house with a large underground garage - despite the fact that I warned the mayor it was alongside a former German trench and was very close to a possible dugout! They just don't seem to care. No-one in La Boisselle is likely to want to fund a museum, sadly. More houses means more population - and thus more money for the local fund. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andigger Posted 25 February , 2005 Share Posted 25 February , 2005 Paul, Was this house ever built, how did the story come out in the end? Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Poilu Posted 25 February , 2005 Share Posted 25 February , 2005 Paul, Is this the new house on the right, about half way down the 'middle' road to Ovillers? I have watched that go up during various visits over the past 18 months. It seems to be a little distance from the old crater or is this another one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Reed Posted 25 February , 2005 Author Share Posted 25 February , 2005 The house has been built and another is due to be built alongside it. It's not the one towards Ovillers, but on the main road, directly alongside the site of the crater. When the snow goes I will try and get down there to photograph it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Reed Posted 28 February , 2005 Author Share Posted 28 February , 2005 As promised, some photos. The photo is taken from the D929 Albert-Bapaume road. The house has been built to the left of where the Y Sap crater was located, but another house is due to be built alongside this one. I suspect both will be about 5-10m from where the lip of the crater was. The rough patch of grass you can (hopefully) see in the photo is where the ground is subsiding on the site of the original crater; Ovillers cemetery and Mash Valley beyond. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Reed Posted 28 February , 2005 Author Share Posted 28 February , 2005 This is taken on the site looking directly at the rough grass where the subsidence has taken place. The dip in the ground is approaching a metre in depth at its greatest point! Hope these are of interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andigger Posted 28 February , 2005 Share Posted 28 February , 2005 Paul, Thanks for the photos... and please excuse my ignorance, but where you are standing was in No man's land looking toward the German lines on 1 July? Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Reed Posted 28 February , 2005 Author Share Posted 28 February , 2005 Hi Andy, The photo is taken on the site of the German front line and strongpoint that the Y Sap mine took out. The rough map below, which is not to scale, shows the German positions in red and British in Blue. The green dots show the approx position of the crater. Hope that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andigger Posted 28 February , 2005 Share Posted 28 February , 2005 Yes Paul, the picture helps, thanks. So the new house would be in the apex of the triangle (sap) where the two green dots are, correct? Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Reed Posted 28 February , 2005 Author Share Posted 28 February , 2005 Yes - that's right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Poilu Posted 28 February , 2005 Share Posted 28 February , 2005 Missed that one Paul! What is the law in France regarding the height of new builds? I believe that in the Somme area only one storey is allowed but is this a 'local' law or nationwide? And it seems such a shame that so many new houses (take the large white house by the re-cycling bins in Ovillers as an example) are simply 'plonked' onto plots with little concern for landscaping or how they may blend in to the surroundings. What do you think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Reed Posted 28 February , 2005 Author Share Posted 28 February , 2005 Missed that one Paul! What is the law in France regarding the height of new builds? I believe that in the Somme area only one storey is allowed but is this a 'local' law or nationwide? There is not a height restriction as such that I know of - the French seem to prefer these type of 'pavillions'. There are strict rules about what a house overlooks if it is of a certain height, and that could have been an issue here as the house is on a main road and the front facing upstairs windows would/could look into the neighbours garden across the road. I had terrible problems putting a window in one of my barns; even though my only neighbours were cows of the moo-ing kind! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark A Posted 28 February , 2005 Share Posted 28 February , 2005 Paul, What are your feelings about this as a local? I guess you can't stop progress can you? M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul guthrie Posted 28 February , 2005 Share Posted 28 February , 2005 To me despite some build up Somme looks much more like a battlefield than the Salient, much more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Reed Posted 28 February , 2005 Author Share Posted 28 February , 2005 Paul, What are your feelings about this as a local? I guess you can't stop progress can you? M I have mixed feelings about it. The French paid a far heavier toll than us in WW1, so that they would be free in their own country to do what they like. And although many British soldiers died on the Somme, the Somme is part of France. However, there is no denying that battlefields can be ruined by too much development - and there is a lot of house building going on at the moment. I agree with what Paul Guthrie has said above, but I think you will be surprised Paul at the number of new houses since you were last on the Somme. The trouble is that the French won't buy old places and do them up - they want new, neat houses close to main roads. What surprises me here is that they would build on such a site as this, given its history. But although the houses will obscure some of the view, there is nothing left of the original crater at ground level - it was of course filled in c.1977/78. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark A Posted 1 March , 2005 Share Posted 1 March , 2005 Yeah, I'd have to agree with that Paul (Read!). I hadn't been back to the Somme for a number of years until last year and was struck by the new development and numbers of visitors. I always remember reading in a Great War book (might have been a Paul Fussel one) where he described post war Somme as a backwater where it was as if the pace and modernity of modern France had passed it by (or words to that effect, he wasn't being complimentary). I think that is changing now... and at the risk of sounding bland that has its good and bad points. The pressure for land for development will only increase I'm sure... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Poilu Posted 1 March , 2005 Share Posted 1 March , 2005 Have to agree with others, in just the small area from Pozieres to Ovillers (where I stay) there must have been at least six new houses built in the last eighteen months - those are the ones I have noticed on the main roads, there may well be more. Ok, it does not sound like much if like me you live here in the SE of the UK and every pub, petrol station and old shop has been knocked down for yet another block of 'executive' flats. However, in the small villages of the Somme where the population is measured in hundreds the impact is rather more noticable. Paul, regarding the height restriction that is surprising, I was told that by Peter from Longueval (Trones View) - maybe it was a local planning issue but every new house I have seen in the countryside from Arras to Albert seems to be built in that style. Financially there are many tax benefits to building a brand new house I believe rather than an old one as us Brits usually do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petroc Posted 14 March , 2005 Share Posted 14 March , 2005 This may be a bit of a sie issue, folks, but (much as I hate to see the destruction of the old sites) is there not also a slightly callous (but necessary?) point to discuss here? Let's face it, if we can to some extent abandon emotion, as we have to being historians, archaeologists, students and enthusiasts, then we must also face the inevitable. Yes, 'heritage' is a massive growth industry which demands new facilities; it is also a highly lucrative industry. Also, there is Mr Read's point of respecting the wishes and ambitions of the indiginous populace. I guess what I'm getting at is that, much as we can all mourn for the loss of historical sites, a major fact remains; that, for its reative size, the 14-18 Western Front remains one of the most preserved, documented and commemorated battlefields on the planet. So, to play Devil's Advocate, is there an argument for 'prioritising' sites in terms of which ones we are going to campaign for and which ones we are going to let go? I'd be interested in members' views............... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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