First World War trench model to get monument status
A WORLD War One model of the Messines battle site – used by troops as a training tool – has been given ancient monuments protection a decade after being discovered on Cannock Chase.
News that the model is fully protected under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act was announced on the centenary of the bloody June 7, 1917, capture of Messines Ridge.
It was built after the battle – in late spring 1918 – and used to train New Zealand riflemen, based on the Chase, before they were sent to fight on the Western Front.
The Kiwi troops arrived on Cannock Chase nearly four months after Messines’ capture.
Following detective work by Richard Pursehouse and Lee Dent of Staffordshire Great War group The Chase Project, the model was excavated in October 2013 by an army of enthusiastic volunteers.
Much of the structure had survived the weather and years, including roads – represented by stamped down pebbles – contour lines, the church, windmills and damaged buildings.
Even doorways to crucial German positions were incorporated. A German canteen at the crossroads was captured early in the morning of June 7 and the NZ YMCA turned this “fortification under Messines’ bastion” into their own canteen to provide a refreshments stop for troops moving on to new positions.
It was the Allies’ way of declaring: “What was once your canteen is now ours”.
Mr Pursehouse and Mr Dent were among the select few to receive an official invitation to the June 7 centenary ceremonies at the Belgian township of Messines.
Their invitation came from London’s New Zealand High Commission, the New Zealand Embassy in Paris and the Governor-General of New Zealand, Her Excellency Dame Patsy Reddy. They were accompanied by fellow Chase Project members David Dunham and Shaun Caddick.
“Of the four ceremonies we attended, perhaps the most intense moment was the Haka performed at the end of the Sunset Ceremony at the New Zealand Memorial,” said Mr Pursehoue.
At another ceremony – at 3.10am, precisely 100 years to the minute after 19 mines exploded along the nine-mile Messines Ridge, causing carnage – the four men gathered at the memorial to pay their silent respects.
“To experience the silent New Zealand frontline positions a century on was both humbling and thought-provoking,” said Mr Pursehoue.
“How many ghosts roamed that moonlit battlefield, the precursor to the mud and blood of Passchendaele eight weeks later?”
The New Zealand Defence Force representatives have been kept informed about the Messines model since 2008, the year after it was discovered.
The model is half the size of a rugby field and is 40 yards square.
The excavation site has been given protection under Section 61 of the Ancient Monuments Act due to it “being of national importance and of public interest.” This 1979 Act will be administered by Historic England, which has been working closely with Staffordshire County Council archaeologist Stephen Dean. The county council owns the land.