LOCHNAGAR CRATER, LA BOISSELLE

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 1^st July 1916. A charge of 60,000 lbs (26.8 tons) of Ammonal explosive was blown at 7.28am resulting in a crater 90 feet deep and 300 feet across. Lochnagar Crater, named after the trench from where the main tunnel was started, is now owned by Englishman Richard Dunning. He saved it from being filled in 1978, and now each year on the 1^st July a ceremony is held here to remember men of all sides who fell on the Somme in 1916. 

Units of the 34^th Division attacked this area and the nearby village of La Boisselle on 1^st July. This formation contained two whole brigades of ‘Pals’ battalions – the Tyneside Irish and the Tyneside Scottish. They suffered many casualties that day – five battalions losing over 500 men each. Indeed the whole division lost 6,380 that day. 

Cecil Lewis, then an officer in the Royal Flying Corps, witnessed the explosion of the mine on 1^st July from his aircraft high above La Boisselle: 

“ The whole earth heaved and flared, a tremendous and magnificent column rose up into the sky. 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."

The site is now maintained by the Friends of Lochnagar. Their website is found at:

http://www.friendsoflochnagar.co.uk/