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Redmires, South Yorkshire: Trenches Unearthed

A chance discovery uncovered trenches once used to train Sheffield’s City Battalion

A series of lines and hollows in the grass on a hill above Redmires Reservoir, west of Sheffield, are the only visual clues to a series of trenches dug by local soldiers training for World War One.

Their very existence had been lost from memory until a chance discovery in 1998 by a rambler who noticed them while out for a walk.

The mystery was taken up by archaeologist Helen Ullathorne from the Institute of Lifelong Learning at the University of Sheffield. She took a group of students to survey the site in 1999.

To their amazement, when they mapped the marks on the ground and looked into what they could be, it was clear they had found a series of trenches designed to World War One specifications.

On further investigation; trenches had been designed for communication, cooking and there were even dug outs for practicing artillery attacks. An empty bottle of Stones beer from the war period was found in a dry stone wall nearby.

Location: Redmires, Peak District S10 4QZ
Image: Arthur Greensmith (highlighted) in the trenches, courtesy of Dorothy Moss
Presented by Kate Linderholm

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Duration:

3 minutes

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