ABSTRACT
In January 1917, the soldier-poet Wilfred Owen and his men occupied captured German trenches near Serre, on the Somme battlefield in France, which included an area known as ‘The Heidenkopf’ (or ‘The Quadrilateral’ to British troops). Coming under heavy shellfire they took cover in the enemy dugouts (Hibberd 2002: 208–12). During the barrage, several casualties were taken, including one man who was blinded, inspiring Owen’s poem The Sentry (Stallworthy 2002: xxv–xxvi). This event was the focus of a BBC television programme broadcast in 2004 which, typical of the way in which First World War archaeology is developing, incorporated archaeological excavations in October 2004 by No Man’s Land, a group specializing in Great War Archaeology (Figure 18:1).
