2018 Battlefield Tour post 21
2018 France/Belgium Trip Post No. 21
From the Sheffield Memorial Park, it was only a couple of miles to our next stop back in Auchonvillers. There we visited Avril Wiliams at Ocean Villas. She runs a small B&B and tea rooms but on site is a museum, preserved trench and a wall of remembrance.
In 1992 Avril purchased an old abandoned farmhouse at 10, Rue Delattre in Auchonvillers. The farmhouse was first built in chalk and brick on the site in the late 17th century and the cellar was used as a larder. On renovating it she discovered the sealed cellar, graffiti found on the walls and artifacts found in the floor in recent years have helped to establish the history of the cellar.
The French dug the original communication trench at the rear of the property with an entrance to the cellar when the front line trenches were established facing Beaumont Hamel in September 1914.
In July 1915, when the British took over responsibility for this part of the line from the French they ordered all of the residents of Auchonvillers away from the danger of the front lines. They then utilised all of the approximately 140 cellars of the village.
The 2nd Monmouthshires re-dug the trench, strengthened the walls and lined the floor with bricks from the destroyed house. Unable to pronounce the name of the village correctly the troops gave Auchonvillers the nickname Ocean Villas.
10, Rue Delattre became a stretcher bearers' post, but half was also used as a detention room for the 36th Division, subsequently becoming a dressing station on 1st July 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme.
Men of the 29th Division used this communication trench taking them to the front lines facing Beaumont Hamel for the opening day of the battle. Many of these men would have walked, or been carried, back along the same trench.
In 1917 the fighting moved away from the village when the Germans withdrew to the Hindenburg Line, about 22 miles away. The cellar was then used for ammunition storage.
1918 saw the German Spring Offensive being stopped here by the British 2nd Division and the New Zealand Division, bringing the cellar back into use, this time as a signallers' post.
After the Armistice, the villagers began to return to the destroyed village and in 1923 the present property was rebuilt over the original cellar which had been used for the growing of mushrooms. It is the only cellar to have survived intact in Auchonvillers.
In 1997 The Khaki Chums, a living history group, began to dig the trench, revealing enough evidence to attract the interest of professional historians and archaeologists.
The next year a team of specialists was brought together to conduct a professional archaeological investigation of the trench.
All of the artefacts discovered during the excavations can be viewed in the Tea Rooms.
