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Remembered Today:

Where precisely is Les Brebis, please?


j-munden

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Hi pals

My grandfather was with the 11 Essex and was at one point at St Brebis (as were many other soldiers, I guess!). but I can't find the location except under the description of 'near Mazingarbe' or some such description.

Can anyone let me know the precise location, please?

Thanks

James

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Could it have been a church rather than a town? St Brebis could have been a ruined church building where the troops took shelter. St Brebis or Notre Dame de St Brebis seems to be quite common in France if you google it. Brebis means ewe in French. Not sure that this answers your question though.

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Ah ha, I asked this question many times ten years ago. 8th East Lancs HQ was located here. It's a small hamlet north west of Grenay and Maroc in the Loos sector. Find the Double Crassier and work from there. I can't find the map with it located on, unfortunately. I'll come back when I've located it.

Stephen

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Les Brebis is/ was about one mile south of Mazingarbe. The rectangular grid system which you can see on 3615 IGN map between Mazingarbe and Bully-les-Mines.

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James

Here is the location named on a trench map (1.10.16 NoexLesMines) and then a modern 25000 with a flag marking where it was. Not, I fear, much to see today looking at the map!

post-28845-1211982275.jpg

post-28845-1211982369.jpg

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Question for those familiar with the area. What is that large rectangular area just to the east of Les Brebis that remains the same on the map today as over 90 years ago?

Jim

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I had assumed that that was Les Brebis. A planned 'coron' for housing miners.

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One of the planned villages provided for the miners. Officially given just numbers but christened locally which may be where Les Brebis came from. As Ian says, often known as Les Corons de(s) __________. See Corons de Pekin behind Hohenzollern redoubt. Miners' rows here in Britain.

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Wow - I stand corrected, there is a lot still to see then. Don't know how old the 25000 map is (they are only just being updated at the moment and some are pretty old) but the area looks unchanged. Worth a visit next time.

Jim

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Well thanks everyone. What a wonderful fount of knowledge you all make. Even after giving you the wrong starting question (it was Les Brebis not St Brebis that I was looking for) you still got there.

In fact you’re so clever, you answered another question for me – which I didn’t ask. Specifically, thanks to High Wood , for solving that mystery – that Brebis means ‘ewe’. I’d also found the word by googling it, but even then couldn’t understand what it meant. But now I know!!

Time to go and find a more difficult question ……..

Cheers

James

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Ign have a google earth type site for France. The area you refer to is now known as Cite Les Brebis.

If you Googlemap the location and pan in on the satellite view, the houses at Les Brebis all look quite new, even if the road pattern is still almost completely unchanged. Has anyone been there on the ground, and confirm if they're still the old houses, or a new set of replacements? Or perhaps a mixture of the two?

I see that Loos was only 4 or 5 miles away. Did the Front ever come any nearer than that to Les Brebis?

Cheers

James

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  • Admin

A lot of the Corons have been renovated over the last few years, the ones opposite Maroc Cemetery have been. Perhaps Les Brebis has been renovated too? Some of the Corons have been demolished, when I first visited Philosophe Cemetery at Mazingarbe there were some very run down Corons nearby, these have gone now.

Regards, Michelle

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  • 7 years later...

Just picked up this thread following (great-Uncle) Capt Arthur Agius war story http://agiusww1.com. 100 years ago today (6th Jan 1916) he was with the 23rd London Regiment who had just arrived at Les Brebis and were billeted in the Coron there.

We moved yesterday, after waiting for orders until about half-past one, at 3.30pm. We had about a couple of hours march to do. When we reached here the billeting wasn’t quite done. However we managed to settle down. We are billeted in Corons – that is a miners colony – a little village of miners cottages set out in a square round a church, managers house &c - the whole in a walled enclosure. There are 10 –20 men in each cottage. I am with a dear old couple who come from Longuenesse near Tatinghem. They cannot do enough for me. I’ve a bed very comfortable. Lloyd has a bed in my room. We mess downstairs & have a sitting room two doors down. Not at all bad. I am feeling disgracefully slack! Lewis came in to-day. He is looking very fit. The weather is very boisterous & cloudy, but it hasn’t rained for a couple of days DG.

post-122129-0-66933900-1452107891_thumb.

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  • 7 years later...

My wife's grandfather, Norman Janes, was at Les Brebis in 1915. We visited the area in 2016 and found the same miners' homes where this photo was taken. Norman Janes is 2nd from right. He subsequently made a career as an artist, illustrator and teacher at Slade School of Art.

Les Brebis, June 1915.jpeg

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You can locate Les Brebis on Trenchmapper. If you right click and choose Map ID Jump and use the ID oh-1915-volume2-map01, that will give the 1915 Official History map, 1:40,000.

Alternativly use Advanved Search and put in simply Brebis (less is better in the search box). Bear in mind that 1915 maps were not accurate in their geometry so do not fit the modern map as well as we would like.

Using the dropdown in the left hand panel you can browse over 280 maps of the area.

Howard

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