Forthcoming visit to the Somme Battlefield. Advice please.

[onefortheroad]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but no doubt the mods will point me in the right direction if not.
Anyway, my wife and I are planning a 5 day trip to the Somme Battlefield in July 2020 to visit the grave of my Great Uncle on the anniversary of his death in action on the 15th July 1916 on the outskirts of Poziere. He is buried in  the Pozieres British Cemetery, Ovillers-la-Boisselle. We have not been to France before and are planning to travel from Folkestone to Calais on the Eurostar, then drive down to the Albert/Amiens area for bed and breakfast for 4 nights.
Has anyone any advice and/or recommendations (without blatant advertising) as to where to stay, what not to do, what to see while we're there, etc.
Any advice will hopefully make our trip so much much successful than simply turning up in France wondering where to go for the best.

Many Thanks,
David.

[Treetotal]

We found this book very helpful:

 Major and Mrs Holt's Pocket Battlefield Guide to the Somme 1918: "The Big Push": 1 July-17 November 1916; The Kaiser's Offensive: 21 March-25 April 1918; American/Canadian/French Sectors 1918 Paperback – Illustrated

Carol

[carom]

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/index.htm

This site has a lot of info on the Somme battlefields which you may find useful.

[BumbleB]

Accommodation - this might be useful

https://about-france.com/france-hotel-guide.htm#Hotel_chains

[onefortheroad]

Hi, Treetotal. Ill have a look for that book, its looks very informative. Thank you.

Good evening, Carom. The guide to the Western Front Battlefields looks promising. Ill have a good read at that. Thanks.

Hiya BumbleB. Plenty to go at there isnt there! Wife will want Luxury Hotel comfort at Budget Hotel price, I just know it. Many thanks.

[Viktoria]

I too recommend the Holt’s book ,it comes with a good map and lists numerically the cemeteries and their locations.
Everything is easy to find from the map.
 I am not at home at the moment so cannot give ISBN numbers etc but returning on 30th, I will do it then.
There is a very good museum at Poziers and you will find Wilfred Owen’s  grave too .
I am sure you will be sad during your visit but you are remembering and that is all any of us can do .
Viktoria.

[MaxD]

Remembering from a year ago you have the war diary of the unit your great uncle served with and the location of his initial burial.  Perhaps you could work out an itinerary based on the movements of 8 E Lancs in the year before he was killed (they arrived late July 1915)?

MaxD

[onefortheroad]

Hello Viktoria. Yes, you and Treetotal both recommended the Holt book so Ive been on Amazon and ordered it together with the Holt battlefield folding map. Got them both with Prime so should be here tomorrow. Thank you.

Hello again, MaxD. Yes, I do have the unit war diary for the period in question. It's pretty graphic in places but, I dare say, normal for the time and situation. I don't however recall it mentioning the place of my great uncle's initial burial. He was one of over 100 casualties in that particular action, on that day (15th July) so he could have been buried in that area I suppose. I copied the diary pages for the month of July but I'll see if I can find the original website to trace the unit further back.

We'll be arriving in France on the Monday (13th) lunchtime and driving down to wherever we're staying. the following day is Bastille Day so not sure what will be open. The Wednesday we'll pay our respects to my Gt.Uncle so Thursday we have the day to visit other sites. Hopefully we'll not come home thinking "if only we'd done this or that". Planning is the key I guess.
Thanks again,
David.

[MaxD]

I thought we had done that last time.  His CWGC entry
https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/588472/bedwell,-/
has below it, a tab marked concentration.  This has entries for those buried initially elsewhere and recovered afire the war to the cemetery.  There is an obvious mistake in his entry.  It starts with map sheet 51D - there wasn't one and it is clear from context that it should read 57D X 10 d 6 8 which is not very far away from the cemetery which is at 57 D X 9 b 8 8.

On the map/image at the link below, the cemetery can be seen to centre left above the Rue d'Albert, the initial burial location is in the right lower quadrant of square X 10 plotting on the image in the centre of the triangular field just below the sign D 147 above the words Rue de Pozieres.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=15&lat=50.0338&lon=2.7234&layers=101465248&right=BingHyb

MaxD