Am I the only one waiting for these areas to be photographed in detail by Google Earth! What a fantastic resource that will be if it ever comes online...

It will be very interesting to see if the old trenches can still be made out!

Presently the images are not good or particularly detailed...

Neil

There are a few WW1 overlays at googleearthhacks. Not exactly any use really but i guess its a start.

http://www.googleearthhacks.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4877

Neil, I'm a fan of Google Earth and I can't wait.

Last November when I was in Ypres I was taken to an area where there is clear evidence of trench lines, totally untouched. We had to go along a very narrow, pitted track to get to it and we were in a coach. One minute we were all panicking because we thought the coach was going to end up in a deep pond and then we saw it, it was absolutely amazing. A whole field where the trench system was visible from the front lines back. To see that from the air would be fantastic, I'm sure. I don't think many have seen it actually, as we turned a corner the farmer was stood there with his mouth wide open.

A truely memorable experience and I am sure that there must be other untouched and forgotten places like that on the Western Front.

Barbara

Try GEOPORTAIL.FR

This is a new service from the French government. They claim to have aerial photos of as detailed a scale as the most detailed GOOGLEEARTH.

It came on line a couple of weeks ago. I haven't been able to look at it yet as, naturally, everyone wants to look at their house, but judhing from what was shown on TV before the launch it is very good indeed. It was intended to go one better than GOOGLE.

Any chance you want to share this location with us? Especially since there's so little left around Ypres concerning trenches...
regards
Roel

A couple of months back one of our forum members posted a site which gave detailed veiws of all of France from an aerial perspective

www.pagesjaunes.fr/pj/cgi

I have been looking at various parts of the Somme through this link and the detail is fantastic.
I'm sorry I can't remember the topic that brought up this site but you might find it using the search engine
Instructions were also posted on how to enter it and find various landmarks, it's also handy for printing off aerial views of the area of interest.

Regards
Tom

Sorry I do not know the exact location. I do know that shortly before we were in a village near Armentieres, so it is not far away from there. Also it was on the German side until 1917 when the British moved forward, it then became part of the British Front lines.

Thats all I know, I'm afraid. I think it is well worth finding but then again it may have been an amazing sight to me because I have never seen anything like it before, I have only been going to the Ypres Salient since the year 2000. I remember that I went to Essex Farm on my first trip, I took photos and showed them to my dad, who then showed me photos of Essex Farm 10 years ago when he was out there and it had changed. Most of the areas of interest appear to have been preserved, which is understandable I suppose, but it loses what it was really like, I think. I found it interesting to see an area that had been untouched.

The lines where the trenches were on the Somme battlefields can still be made out by the naked eye, especially on bright hot days. The chalk goes to the surface of the grass, making it lighter where the trenches once were.

Hello

I had a look on google earth and thought that France was pretty poor - I looked at Bethune and it was of bad quality

Really seems to vary , but I couldnt find Table Mountain in S Africa so could be user error!

Ian

That link gives me:

La page que vous recherchez n'existe plus
ou cette adresse est peut-être erronée.

Parceque that link is faulty. You must use:
http://www.pagesjaunes.fr/
good hunting

the way to go with pages jaunes is to put albert for example, as the town then a common name like dupont, it`s very good

GEOPORTAIL.FR isn't bad, it lets you flip to & fro from map to aerial photo so you know where you are. I found some of the mine craters pretty easily, I'm suprised I couldn't see more of the trench lines. I see some at Thiepval. Many blotches of chalk here & there. Cemeteries get pretty easy to spot after a while, they're also on the map.

For the Ypres-region use http://www.giswest.be/artman/publish/cat_index_75.html
It's in Dutch, but very easy to use. Follow the link and you'll see a map. Select the part of the region you're interested in and keep clicking until the maps change into (very clear & detailed) pictures!

Thanks Healdav and roel22, two new bookmarks added to my list. These sites are great.... Even helped me find my campsite for my hols in Languedoc, in a fortnight.....

Languedoc? Nothing WW1 there is there?

I know, but my kids get to chose, not me - there's a water park and that's enough for them.
As my wife put it...that's it I'm picking somewhere where we don't have to bloody trek and see cemeteries, or memorials half the time. (I'm sure Argeles will have one).
It is a holiday after all........
the things you do for family......
PS. I like the facilty on Geoportail.FR to fade in the roads on to the aerial map in varying degrees, by sliding the arrow up/down. I can see how that could help to find Great War landmarks.