Escorted Rail Tours to Beaumont-Hamel

Visit the largest preserved World War I battlefield in the Somme

The Somme region of Picardy in northern France is synonymous with the fiercest battles fought in the First World War and of the many rural villages in this beautiful and pastoral area that witnessed the conflict, Beaumont-Hamel was the closest to the front line.

Beaumont-Hamel, and the vast plateau upon which it is located, became part of the theatre of war on July 1st 1916 when the 1st Battalion of the Regiment of Newfoundland, Canada, fighting for the Allies, engaged the German Army here. This was the first day of the Battle of the Somme, and the Canadian battalion's first engagement in conflict. In an unsuccessful assault lasting little more than thirty minutes almost all of the soldiers of the 1st Battalion of the Regiment of Newfoundland were lost in the German counter-attack.

The original village of Beaumont-Hamel, captured by German troops as a fortress town, was almost entirely destroyed during battle.

Today, Beaumont-Hamel has become an unmissable destination on our battlefield trips for those who wish to learn about, and pay their respects to, those who fought in the Great War. Covering thirty hectares, it is the site of the largest preserved battlefield of the Somme, at which visitors can walk between the German trenches and the Allied defensive positions and see the craters left by the bombs which fell here.