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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Loos Then & Now


Paul Reed

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Some more photos from the John Giles collection; this time of Loos and Tower Bridge. First Tower Bridge in 1915 - no, JG didn't take this one!

post-4-1075671611.jpg

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Just realised this is taken ON Hill 70, just astride the Lens road looking roughly north towards Hulluch.

Anyway - another one below. This shows the rebuilt Tower Bridge not long after the pit closes in the 60s.

post-4-1075672156.jpg

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This could be in the 70s (JG took very few colour shots prior to the 70s) and shows another view of Tower Bridge. This building went in the early 1980s, if memory serves me correct.

Hope you find them of interest.

post-4-1075672280.jpg

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Thanks for sharing that Paul. The pit head is the most magnificent piece of architecture and engineering, I've never seen anything to compare with it in the UK.

Andy

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Many thanks for the great photographs Paul.

regards

Richard

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  • Admin

This is what the Loos battlefield looked like last Thursday.

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  • Admin

Sorry about the size!

Pic c/o Bruce Simpson

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The 'grainy' photo is very interesting. How the Double Crassier - the flat spoilheap behind Loos - must have grown from the 1960s to the present day - as seen in Michelle/Bruce's photo. Extraordinary.

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Spoil heaps? You mean they're NOT memorials to the Egyptian soldiers who died on the Western Front??

(That's what my son was told on his school battlefield tour - honest :lol: )

Paul and Michelle - excellent pictures and thank you for letting us see them.

Tom

PS - I wasn't the guide.

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I am sure that if you enlarge the hump on the RHS of Michelle's pic you can just make out the outline of a Sphinx!

Michelle and Paul thanks for sharing the pics with us.

A question for any mining engineers amongst us. What was the purpose of tower bridge? I can understand there being one tower to house the pit head winding gear, but why two side by side? I can't see the logic of sinking two shafts so close together.

One further question on the Loos battlefield, did the fighting extend underground into the mines?

Tim

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  • 11 months later...
A question for any mining engineers amongst us. What was the purpose of tower bridge? I can understand there being one tower to house the pit head winding gear, but why two side by side? I can't see the logic of sinking two shafts so close together.

One further question on the Loos battlefield, did the fighting extend underground into the mines?

Getting ready for my own trip over to the site I am looking into some of these older threads about Loos, etc. Thought I'd bring this one back up because of the pictures, but also in hopes that some might be able to answer Tim's questions. It is something I have been wondering myself.

Andy

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It isn't that uncommon actually, often mines have an upshaft and a downshaft, don't know if this was the case here. Also sometimes mines also have seperate shafts for people and wagons.

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I must admit the two shafts do seem close together, one shaft downcast ( the air went down ) usually referred to as No.1 shaft and where the mineral was brought up No.2 shaft upcast, situated at the top is/was a fan which pulled the air through the mine,and an air lock, men and materials were sent down this one.

This landscape would have been very familiar to the Notts. and Derby men in Sept/Oct 1915.

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One further question on the Loos battlefield, did the fighting extend underground into the mines?

Tim

According to the Official History , the collieries were owned by two different companies., which happened to lie in diferent back areas. i.e. one in the German area , one in the British. The only exception was Fosse 8 where the pithead was in German hands. So there was no underground fighting in the collieries. There were , of course, lots of 'ordinary' mines dug and exploded by both sides.

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  • 1 year later...
Shame we can no longer view the photos - or did I miss the bit about them being moved?

Same question I'm asking myself (with other older posts as well...)

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Guest grantaloch

Yes I was thinking the same thing I even thought there was something wrong with my computer, or you had to have certain button or something. Any explanation please. (Grantaloch.) Bob.

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