Back to the Bustard

Monday 2nd June and we were joined on Salisbury Plain by a team of Bristol University students, ably led by Nick Saunders. They have joined us to spend a week digging on the site of the Anzac 3rd Division training trenches at The Bustrad on Salisbury Plain. The site takes it's name from the large bird and from the nearby pub named after it.

In 1916 the Australian soldiers took over, adapted amd trained in a series of trenches dug on Salisbury Plain to instruct and inform soldiers in the practice of trench diggin, maintenance, routine and life. The Australians are known to have spent days and nights in the trenches familiarising themselves with trench life. They are known to have been involved in exercises with live fire and the blowing of a small mine, which they seem then to have "captured" and fortified, just as they were to do at Ultimo crater, during the Battle of Messines.

The dig is designed to do a number of things. It will see what can be discerned in the archaeological record of the activities of these and other soldiers. The dig will also assess the survivial and condition of the remains. Information gained here will add to the picture of preparation for War in 1916/17.

Richard and Martin led an NML team here in 2005 but since then there has been neither opportunity nor resources to return so the help given by Bristol is invaluable.

The results from the Magnetometer survey are now delivered as an early Christmas present by the Colonel, and pretty special they are! The front line runs from top left to lower right with a splodge representing the crater from the mine explosion (now home to a badger) being present in front (to the right) of the front line near the top of the main rectangle of the survey. Interestingly, there is clear evidence for a T-head runnning from this as part of practice of crater fortification. This equates well with Dan's excavation trench at Messines. All manner of Saps and Comms trenches are also visible. There is a clear need for a small, targeted excavation we think....

Back to the Bustard

Last week Peter AKA The Colonel came down to Salisbury Plain to work some more of his geophysical magic. He undertook three days of magnetometer survey over part of the trench system dug and used by Anzac 3 Division during their training ahead of their deployment to France and, ultimately, to Messines. Among the exercise was the blowing, capture and refortification of a mine. Admittedly the mine was much smaller than the Ultimo Mine but they seem to have refortified it in just the same way as we saw in Dan's trench last summer.

As sson as Peter has sent me his results I will post them here! Interestingly they show again that this is the technique to use when looking for buried trenches. "Mag" certainly seems quicker and more productive than resistivity.

What this survey means is that we have an accurate plot of the remains and can target some more excavation to see if we can get more comparative data between Belgium and the training ground here in UK.

Watch this space!

The Australian War Memorial

The AWM are a key partner in the project and were instrumental in its inception (actually it was in a pub near the UK National Army Museum where Pete Stanley of the AWM and Richard and I were discussing the Anzac practice trenches at the Bustard on Salisbury Plain, after that things just growed).

The AWM has a very good page leading to all sorts of information about the 1917-2007 Messines anniversary her:

http://blog.awm.gov.au/1917/

I commend it to you.