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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Are these Great War trenches?


Smithmaps

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While looking in the area of Sailsbury Plain the village of Codford still shows signs of extensive WW1 activity.

There was a large camp there and the fields north of the main street show some interesting signs.

Cheers

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  • 2 weeks later...

Also, if you go to the following great French site.....

http://www.geoportail.fr/index.php?event=D...f7d2e88aa8ee6ae

.....then type in "Suippes" in the "Aller a une commune" box.......

Just to the North-East of this village is the militray zone of Camp de Suippes, and if you zoom in close enough, you will clearly see many trenches all over this area.

Under the heading "Transparence", move the slider to mix the image between image-only to map-only.

I think this is a restricted military zone now, as after the war, it was deemed too dangerous to let the inhabitants return to the land. In fact, my wife's father did his National Service training in this area, and distinctly remembers the remains from the War.

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  • 8 years later...

A video clip

featuring the GWF's Richard Osgood about trenches on Salisbury Plain, arborglyphs (Initials carved in trees) and some rare footage of practice trenches being dug.

I'm not sure about Simon Ashton's comment at the end about so many ANZAC deaths on the Plain being due to training accidents. Most resulted from Spanish influenza.

Moonraker

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Another clip

of practice trenches being dug, though it doesn't say where. The "new entrenching tool" looks a bit on the small side for digging, but no doubt its size was limited by the need for it to be carried by the user?

Moonraker

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Another clip

of practice trenches being dug, though it doesn't say where. The "new entrenching tool" looks a bit on the small side for digging, but no doubt its size was limited by the need for it to be carried by the user?

Classic bit of mis-leading journalism - that's the 1908 Pattern "Sirhind" entrenching tool. I couldn't see a date on that film, but at least very late 1914 at the earliest (I'm guessing more likely 1915 or 1916). So they'd already been around 6+ years by that point. New to the troops using them perhaps...?

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  • 4 months later...

I have recently posted a Google Earth image on the forum of a place not far from here where you could see the 'scars' of the trenches in the soil.

I suspect there is every chance these trenches are from the Great War, given the location.

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Hi Algernon, and welcome to the Forum.

Not far from where? And I can't find the image to which you refer.

Moonraker

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A fragment of a map drawn during the Great War with the same Bonne grid as on Trench Maps, headed Artillery Training, Chitterne. This is between Warminster and Shrewton.

post-991-0-53063600-1439484078_thumb.jpg


A second fragment from the same map.

post-991-0-15183500-1439484142_thumb.jpg


A fragment of a map of Durrington, nearby.

post-991-0-69683200-1439484263_thumb.jpg


And one of Bovington Camp.

Howard

post-991-0-20705300-1439484305_thumb.jpg

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Howard

Where can I get the Chitterne map in full?

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Howard

Where can I get the Chitterne map in full?

PM sent

Howard

And here is a map of the OP of 2007!

An undated German map.

Howard

post-991-0-40101200-1439488864_thumb.jpg

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Howard: Very interesting segments, especially of Chapperton Down. The areas featured in the first two segments have always been enigmatic for me, as not much info seems to exist about operations in them and, of course, they cannot be accessed nowadays.

May I ask you, please, to PM me with the info you've sent Gareth?

Moonraker

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Howard: Very interesting segments, especially of Chapperton Down. The areas featured in the first two segments have always been enigmatic for me, as not much info seems to exist about operations in them and, of course, they cannot be accessed nowadays.

May I ask you, please, to PM me with the info you've sent Gareth?

Moonraker

Don't tell anyone but they don't have any Range Wardens on patrol at them moment (they made them redundant) so you can sneak on to the area pretty easily. Park up near Quebec Farm and head NW.

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Gareth, is there any danger from unexploded ammo etc on that part of the Salisbury Plain Training Area? I'm not sure what sort of military activity takes place there. I know that the northern part of the central area north of Larkhill is an artillery impact area, but presumably if one keeps to the tracks - keeping an eye out for anything suspicious on them - one is safe.

The impact area covers the site of Pond Farm Camp, used for pre-WWI summer camps and by the First Canadian Contingent in late 1914.

Moonraker

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I went up there many times when I was working at the Land Warfare Centre and I lived to tell the tale.

I think the best thing to do is ignore my advice in post #38 and instead give the DIO at Westdown Camp a call and ask for permission to go out there when training isn't taking place. You might be able to persuade one of the Military Training Area Marshals to take you up there.

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A few years ago, Forum member Richard Osgood, based at Westdown Camp, gave me a guided tour of parts of the Plain not open to the public.

Presumably the

vedettes

are still manned when firing takes place? Fifty-five years ago (gulp) I remember hoping to cycle into Imber on a day when the Western Plain was not in use, but was stopped at a manned vedette. That part of the Plain is still normally closed to the public, except on some Bank Holidays, when access through Imber and to the church is permitted.(The army is definitely not keen on visitors wandering around the shells of other buildings.)

BTW, "Westdown" - as Gareth has it - is indeed the correct modern spelling for the camp of army buildings near Tilshead. (A public road once went through the centre but was diverted around the camp several decades ago.) "West Down" was the spelling for the nearby pre-WWI camping-sites, briefly used at the start of the war by the First Canadian Contingent..

Moonraker

(demonstrating pedantry, and also keenness to keep the thread WWI-relevant, at least in part)

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Most vedettes are unmanned, they rely on signs and red flags instead. The road through Imber is open at the moment (and stays open until 24 Aug).

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In my experiences SPTA can be safe whilst adhering to "The Rules", having worked within the impact area there is indeed dangerous things lying around which do tend to get sorted out. On two occasions I was involved with the rescue of cars using SATNAV during live firing. On one of these occasions both AS90 and Light Guns were firing and the car was spotted by one of the FOO's. The whole SPTA range had to be closed for 18 hours whilst we extracted first the idiot then the following morning his hire car (Ford Focus) which he had somehow got to where he was over very dangerous terrain. A very lucky man

Regards

Paul

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There are two sheets headed Salisbury Plain in the Artillery Training series (1:20:000) but they do not show any markup, nor does the one headed Stonehenge.

Here is a fragment of another Chitterne sheet that has a little more detail but not the gun pits as fragment no. 2 above as it covers a slightly different area.

The 250Mb limit means it needs to be fairly squashed.

Howard

post-991-0-18875200-1439546898_thumb.jpg

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  • 1 year later...
On 27/02/2007 at 13:45, Martin Brown said:

I don't see why not. I something like a minibus full of you wanted to come we could sort something out with a GW theme, as well as seeing some other groovy things on the way round.

What we could see when might be affected by troop movements but Fridays and weekends tend to be better than midweek.

You only have to ask. I'm not offering to set up a visit but if one of you does so then we will be happy to guide because actually we like to show off what we've got - it looks nicer than the Somme!

Martin

oh how that quote brought back memories (nicer than the somme) of laying up in one of the many copse on a wet and windy night waiting for an ambush etc lol and what makes me mad is all the time i spent at lark hill and the "plain" i knew about the neolithic element but nothing of the ww1 history...then again i dont think i would have had much time to look!!

Edited by commando7bty
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I remember the training trenches at Chitterne as my Uncle was farm manager of the land on which they were situated.

I did wander about in them a couple of times, but they were slightly too far into the ranges as I recall and also they had a lot of nasty exploded stuff in them.

There was a large pit that was full of bazooka rockets that was a real no no.

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anyone remeber Alan Baker, used to be a range warden in the vedettes also worked on the rifle ranges, liked his Land Rovers and Range Rovers. retired now, I got the feeling it had lost its apeal since LandMark took over.

will say a week or so ago it ws bl**dy noisy we could hear it loud in Melksham, apparently a workmate said it was rattling the windows in Westbury.went on most of the week , evenings as well.

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All good and useful, thank you!

Just to say, I have submitted the report on First World War fieldworks in England, which will include a section on SPTA!

Edited by Martin Brown
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Excellent. Thank you

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