Six stands in one day: walking the Somme battlefield

Stand 4: Lochnagar Crater - July 1 1916

Lochnagar Crater - map of the battleground at the time of the Somme

• The largest of the mines exploded on 1 July. It contained 66,000lbs of ammonal in two charges 55 feet below the surface
• The Somme, with its chalk, was ideal for mining. The work was done by Tunnelling Companies, Royal Engineers, which often recruited men who had been miners in civilian life.
• The mine was blown at 7.28 on the morning of 1 July: the explosions constituted what was then the loudest man-made sound in history, and could be heard in London. The mine created a crater 90 yards across and 70 feet deep, with a lip 15 feet high.
• The sector was attacked by the 34th Division, a New Army Division consisting of Tyneside Irish and Tyneside Scottish battalions. It lost 6,380 officers and men that day, and was the hardest-hit British division