More trench maps

[HARRY THE MOLE]

Here is another trench map from my collection. This one is sheet number 28 NW edition 4 B. German trenches in red and correct up to 28/1/1917

I have enlarged a section and again matched it up to an image from Google earth. This is the area around Hill 60 in Belgium. The clump of trees next to the railway line - known as 'The Dump' is still there. The actual road layouts have barely changed.

[SteveR]

That is nice work friend.

[HARRY THE MOLE]

Here's another comparison. The white circle is the approximate site of Prowse Farm. yellow dot is Oxford Road. Red dot is Cambridge Road. Although hard to see, at the top of Cambridge Road and just to the left is a blue dot which marks the approximate site of Mill Cottage. Pink dot is the site of Crump Farm. White dot is Warwick farm. White cross marks the approximate position of 'The Mound' and is also the approximate position of the German front line. The British front line was at the right edge of Crump Farm. The track running down to the bottom of the picture from Crump Farm follows the line of the British front-line trench

[HARRY THE MOLE]

Here's a view of part of the area around the infamous Mouse Trap Farm. The dull red dot is Mouse Trap Farm. The white cross marks the approximate spot of Pickelhaube Ho. The yellow dot is Cheddar Villa and blue dot is Bossaert Farm.

[Jerry B]

Great stuff Harry. Which units were there at the time?

[Paul D]

Here's another comparison. The white circle is the approximate site of Prowse Farm. yellow dot is Oxford Road. Red dot is Cambridge Road. Although hard to see, at the top of Cambridge Road and just to the left is a blue dot which marks the approximate site of Mill Cottage. Pink dot is the site of Crump Farm. White dot is Warwick farm. White cross marks the approximate position of 'The Mound' and is also the approximate position of the German front line. The British front line was at the right edge of Crump Farm. The track running down to the bottom of the picture from Crump Farm follows the line of the British front-line trench

Steve that's great mate , my Grandfather was at Warwick Farm in 1918 with 126 Heavy Battery RGA ( 60 Pounders ) !!

[harryamb2]

nice work Harry.

[HARRY THE MOLE]

Hi Jerry,

rather than trying to explain troops there at the time, I have taken the easy (lazy) option. Here are two maps. One lifted from Lyn Macdonald's excellent book... 'They Called It Passchendaele.' And the other is from another excellent book... 'Passchendaele' by Peter Barton. I will go through the maps again in a bit and see if I can find some more interesting bits. A good tip for anyone who may wish to own original trench maps, do as I do. I scan them and keep the scans in an A4 wallet folder. It takes around nine sheets of A4 to do a complete trench map of a scale of 1:20,000. But once scanned, there is no need to keep opening those 90+ year-old maps. All I do is refer to the scans. They are much easier to handle. if you look at the yellow map, Oxford Road (shown on previous photo) runs down from just left of Wieltje. This should be a good marker for anyone who wants to compare previous images.

[HARRY THE MOLE]

Hi Paul,

Here's a scan of more of the area around Warwick Farm. I can't give you the grid reference (in slidex or griddle ). But if you look at second square down from right you should locate it. This scan represents 1/9th of the area covered by the map.

I forgot to add (for those that may not already know), British trenches are marked in blue. They are not named or marked as exact positions for security reasons. It wouldn't do for the Germans to capture an accurate up-to-date trench map! Around 1918, the German trenches began to be marked in blue on British maps to correspond with the French system of marking trench maps.

[Allegra]

Not sure how I missed this - but many thanks for sharing.

I love these type of maps...I have several.

Cheers