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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Tour Des Forts

A beautiful weekend and time to ramble along with Arthur Lamy and Martin Walton, two Blue Badge Guides, visiting some of the forts that ring the isand creating different generations of defense.

Arthur Lamy
Martin Walton


The Blue Badge

Visitors and locals gather at the museums gates.


Roll call.




Our trusty guides lead us behind the museum and discover a large mural.




Painted by local artist Jason Butler and depicting a history of island life.


Fort Regent and the dedication stone.


Martin begins to flood our minds with knowledge.

 

Gun barrel of small cannon within the Fort.


Setting the scene and providing context to what lies in front of us.


The joys of Fort Regent's hidden treasures lie before us.


New angles are discovered.



We then coached our way to Noirmont Point to engage with the German fortifications known as Batterie Lothringen. This has been carefully restored and in some places skillfully reconstructed by the Channel Islands Occupation Society.



Martin begins to describe the massive feat undertaken by the Germans to create an Atlantic Defenses system and latterly the rediscovery by the dedicated members of CIOS.


Even the little people love its hidden passages.


There are plenty of descripitive signs around the site.



Down to the bunker.


Martin describes the comparison between the Napoleonic Martello Towers littering the coast and the more secretive but potentially more devastating German emplacements.


Opening the bunker is a difficult but effective process.


Evidence of the occupation and areas of reconstruction vividly bring to life what it must have been like during the occupation. 





All the artefacts have been meticulously gathered and displayed.


Arthur calls us back to the surface. Time to move on.


Noirmont's Memorial

The Lewis Tower.












Friday, June 10, 2011