Lochnagar Crater - Attack on La Boisselle
La Boisselle and Lochnagar Crater, Somme
3D laser scans carried out in June and October 2012 of the Glory Hole and the Lochnagar Crater at La Boisselle in Northern France. Thanks to the La Boisselle Study Group ( for the invitation to undertake the survey.
Survey carried out by Multi-Limn and Frankham Consultancy Group using Leica C10 and ScanStation 2 Laser scanners, and animated using Pointools.
The Lochnagar mine crater at La Boiselle (Somme-France)
Along the D20 in La Boisselle a sign points to the right to 'La Grande Mine'. High on a hill outside the village is 'La Grande Mine', a great crater known to the British as the 'Lochnagar Crater', caused by the detonation of a British mine at 7.28 am on 1 July 1916, just before the opening assaults of the Battle of the Somme. Second Lieutenant C A Lewis, Royal Flying Corps, saw the explosion from the air:
The whole earth heaved and flashed, a tremendous and magnificent column rose up into the air. There was an ear--splitting roar, drowning all the guns, flinging the machine sideways in the repercussing air. The earth column rose higher and higher to almost 4,000 feet [1,220 metres]. There it hung, or seemed to hang, for a moment in the air ... then fell away in a widening cone of dust and debris.
Lewis, quoted in Martin Middlebrook, The First Day on the Somme, London, 1977, p.120
Lochnagar Crater
This awe-inspiring crater (300 feet wide and 70 feet deep) is near La Boiselle. (1st July 1916)
WW1 La Boisselle - Lochnagar Mine Crater - Stuart Curry
On the first day of the Battle of the Somme. 1st July 1916 the largest underground mine at the Western Front was let off near the village of La Boisselle. At 7.28am a double chamber of 60,000 lbs of ammonal explosives was ignited. The Germans quickly recovered from the eruption and held the mine crater for a few days.
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Trou de mine de La Boisselle (Lochnagar Crater)(80)
Le Trou de mine de La Boisselle appelé encore La Grande Mine et en anglais, Lochnagar Crater (trou de la gloire) est un lieu de mémoire de la Bataille de la Somme, pendant la Grande Guerre situé sur la commune d'Ovillers-la-Boisselle à 600 m au sud-est du village de La Boisselle sur le Circuit du Souvenir. Aujourd'hui, Il mesure 80 mètres de diamètre et 32 m de profondeur et résulte de l'explosion d'une mine créée par les Royal Engineer tunnelling companies.
L'offensive de la Bataille de la Somme en 1916 avait été précédée par un travail de sape dans les deux camps pour tenter d'affaiblir les défenses adverses. L'explosion de mines donna le signal du début de la Bataille de la Somme, le 1er juillet 1916. A La Boisselle, les mineurs gallois du 9e Cheshires ont creusé un tunnel allant jusqu'aux lignes allemandes. A 16 m de profondeur, ils placèrent 27 tonnes d'explosifs (de l'ammonal). La mise à feu eut lieu le 1er juillet 1916 à 7 h 28, deux minutes avant le début de l'offensive franco-britannique de la bataille de la Somme. La colonne de terre projetée se serait élevée à 1 200 m de hauteur et l'entonnoir, qui avait alors 100 mètres de diamètre et 30 mètres de profondeur, fut aussitôt occupé par les Britanniques. Au même moment, une autre mine, « Y Sap », avait explosé de l'autre côté de la route qui mène à Bapaume
Lochnagar est devenu un véritable lieu de recueillement. C'est le seul cratère de mine à être aussi bien conservé et surtout le seul à être accessible au public. Il est la propriété de Richard Dunning, vivant dans le Surrey, en Grande-Bretagne. Aujourd’hui le cratère de La Boisselle mesure 80 mètres de diamètre et 30 mètres de profondeur. Il subit l'usure de l'érosion. Il est maintenant interdit de descendre à l’intérieur du cratère car les parois sont en calcaires et risquent de s’ébouler accélérant ainsi le comblement
Lochnagar Crater - Sausage Valley
The Lochnagar Crater, La Boisselle by Drone
The Lochnagar Crater lies roughly 600 metres to the south of the small town of La Boisselle, on The Somme. The Crater was formed by two charges of 36,000 pounds and 24,000 pounds of Ammonal Explosive placed in two galleries of a tunnel dug around 50 feet in depth below the German lines by the British 179th Tunneling Company, Royal Engineers. At 07.28 the mine was exploded along with another mine to the North of La Boisselle known as Y Sap which has since been filled in. The crater was purchased by Richard Dunning in 1978, remains in private hands, and is maintained by The Friends Of Lochnagar as a monument to the men who lost their lives during the Battle of the Somme.
THE FRIENDS OF LOCHNAGAR WEBSITE:
100 Anniversary of WW1 Somme PT:4 The Lochnagar Crater La Grande Mine
The Lochnagar mine crater on the 1916 Somme battlefields in France is the largest man-made mine crater created in the First World War on the Western Front. It was laid by the British Army’s 179th Tunnelling Company Royal Engineers underneath a German strongpoint called “Schwaben Hohe”. The mine was exploded two minutes before 07:30 am Zero Hour at the launch of the British offensive against the German lines on the morning of July 1st, 1916.
On 1st July 1978 the piece of ground containing this huge crater was purchased by Richard Dunning. The historical significance of the site and the fact that this ground still contains the undiscovered remains of German, French and British soldiers from the Great War of 1914-1918 convinced Richard that it was a place which should be preserved. Richard’s aim is to preserve the site and to make it a Garden of Remembrance and a place where visitors to the Somme can find a quiet opportunity for reflection. As a memorial it commemorates the men and women of all nations whose lives were affected by the Great War of 1914-1918.
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Lochnagar Crater - La Grande Mine - Ovillers-la-Boisselle - 12 july 2017 - MVI 2860
Le Trou de mine de La Boisselle appelé encore La Grande Mine et en anglais, Lochnagar Crater est un lieu de mémoire de la Bataille de la Somme, pendant la Grande Guerre situé sur le territoire de la commune d'Ovillers-la-Boisselle à 600 m au sud-est du village de La Boisselle sur le Circuit du Souvenir. Aujourd'hui, il a un diamètre d'au moins 90 mètresNote 1, et fait 22 m de profondeur. Il résulte de l'explosion d'une mine créée par les Royal Engineer tunnelling companies. Le trou a été formé par près de 30 tonnes d'explosif.
The Lochnagar mine was an underground explosive charge, secretly planted by the British during the First World War, ready for 1 July 1916, the first day on the Somme. The mine was dug by the Tunnelling Companies of the Royal Engineers under a German field fortification known as Schwabenhöhe (Swabian Height) in the front line, south of the village of La Boisselle in the Somme département. The British named the mine after Lochnagar Street, the British trench from which the gallery was driven. The charge at Lochnagar was one of 19 mines that were placed beneath the German lines on the British section of the Somme front, to assist the infantry advance at the start of the battle. The Lochnagar mine was sprung at 7:28 a.m. on 1 July 1916 and left a crater 98 ft (30 m) deep and 330 ft (100 m) wide, which was captured and held by British troops. The attack on either flank was defeated by German small-arms and artillery fire, except on the extreme right flank and just south of La Boisselle, north of the Lochnagar Crater. The crater has been preserved as a memorial and a religious service is held each 1 July.
Lochnagar crater walk around
Short walk around the WW1 Lochnagar crater (La Grande Mine)
Lochnagar Crater - Glory Hole to Lochnagar Crater
Mate refuses to walk to the bottom of Lochnagar Crater, La Boiselle 8/4/2012
Visit to Lochnagar Crater 8/4/2012
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lochnagar crater
A brief video of the lochnagar crater located in france.
WW1 - La Bosielle - English 34th Division - Stuart Curry
Battle of the Somme 1st July 1916. Western Front Battlefields, France. Mash Valley 25th Northumberland Fusiliers, 102 Brigade, 3rd Corps. German Machine Gun positions at La Boisselle.
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The Lochnagar Mine Crater, at La Boiselle
The Lochnagar Crater, at La Boiselle
The largest British mine crater on the Western Front, this was one of several mines exploded under the German front line positions on the Somme on 1st July 1916. A charge of 60,000 lbs (26.8 tons) of Ammonal explosive was blown at 7.28am The Lochnagar Crater measured 300ft across and 90ft deep (200ft wide and 81ft deep by 1919). Lochnagar Crater, is named after the trench from where the main tunnel was started,
Aerials of where Somme centenary will be marked
(28 Jun 2016) Days ahead of the 100th anniversary of start of the Battle of the Somme, a birds-eye view still shows the scarring on the northern French landscape of some of the deadliest battles of the First World War.
A 100-year-old trench, its edges now smoothed over by verdant overgrowth, snakes through a French meadow.
Craters carved by bombs still pock the countryside.
The birds-eye view of the World War I battlegrounds conveys the unprecedented scale of what happened, a century on.
Fields across a swathe of northern France became home to soldiers from Britain and the Commonwealth, France and Germany as they faced off across the front in the summer of 1916.
On 1 July, this eerie, bucolic landscape will host British royals, Prime Minister David Cameron, and other dignitaries and youth from across Europe gathering to commemorate the battle.
The gathering comes at a poignant moment, as continental unity is under existential threat following Britain's vote to quit the European Union.
Today, grass covers the Lochnagar Crater, a dent in the earth that spans 91 metres (299 feet) wide and reaches 21 metres (69 feet) deep, that now marks a huge and unusual peace memorial near the town of Ovillers-la-Boisselle.
At Beaumont-Hamel, what looks like a ribbon of grassy knolls from the air is actually a preserved section of the trench line.
Generations of British schoolchildren have come here to learn about the war.
Rows and rows of crosses and simple markers surround the towering brick Thiepval Memorial, honouring tens of thousands of British and South African forces who died in the Somme and have no known grave.
They are among the battle's many victims - six months of fighting left more than 400,000 soldiers dead or missing here.
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WWI Largest Explosion Before Atomic Bomb-Lochnagar Crater
Today on The Scriptorium, join my Bond tour travelers as they race for chocolate around the Lochnagar Crater detonated July 1, 1916, opening day of the Battle of the Somme, and bloodiest day in British military history.
“At 7.28am a maroon was launched and whistles blown for 30 seconds reflecting the first few minutes of a battle that would leave 19,240 British and Commonwealth soldiers dead by the end of that first day.
“One hundred years earlier, a mine packed with 60,000lbs of explosives painstakingly laid beneath the German trenches was detonated. The plume of debris rose to 4,000 ft and two minutes later men hurled themselves ‘over the top’ to the shrill sound of whistles and attacked what they expected to be destroyed German trenches.” (Centenarynews.com)
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La Boisselle, France
This video shows the area to the west of the village of la Boisselle, France.
On 1st July 1916, the British Front line ran parallel to the modern D20 across Mash Valley. As the soldiers went over the top they advanced up hill towards the German machine guns: and were cut to ribbons. No soldier in this sector advanced more then about 80m.
Want to travel to this location but do not know how to find it? Battlefields By GPS ( has self-drive tours of the Somme with full GPS packages for Garmin sat nav devices.
Please take a look at Video History Today , the first web site to offer unique collections of re-usable original video clips designed for teachers and students.
Lochnager crater - The Somme
On 7.28am on Saturday, 1st July 1916 - the first day of the Battle of the Somme - 27 Tonnes of explosive blown up under German trenches. Crater is at La Boisselle, The Somme.