THE WELLINGTON QUARRY, MEMORIAL OF THE BATTLE OF ARRAS

20 metres below the pavements of Arras, discover the Wellington Quarry, a site immersed in memory and emotion. In November 1916, the British started preparing for the 1917 spring offensive. Their stroke of genius: to have the New Zealand tunnellers connect up the town’s chalk extraction tunnels to create a real network of underground barracks large enough to accommodate up to 24,000 soldiers. After a 20-metre descent in a glass-fronted lift, the audio guided and escorted visit plunges the visitor into the site’s atmosphere. A strategic location as well as a living space, the Quarry, named Wellington by the New Zealand sappers, preserves the memory of those thousands of soldiers quartered underground just a few metres from the front, before launching themselves onto the fi eld of battle on 9th April 1917 at 5.30 in the morning, in a surprise attack on the German positions. Through the projection of a fi lm, coming to the surface in the soldiers’ footsteps bring the shock of battle to life.