Contact no.56
Please get in touch!
We’d love to hear from you. Whether you want to check availability, reserve a room or find out more about our B&B or Walk With Me, please call us, email us or complete the form below. Unfortunately we do not have any availability for 1st July 2017 but have most other dates available throughout 2017.
No.fifty6 is situated 1.5 hours drive from Calais and 40 minutes from Lille, which has direct train connections to St Pancras International and Albert. If you are on a road trip, simply put your location into Google Maps on the right to plan your route.
If you would like to read what others say about No.fifty6, please click on the link to the right for full TripAdvisor reviews.
"David & Julie must set the ultimate standard for the perfect hosts. From the timely response to our initial enquiry to the day of our arrival at Amiens Station to find our hire car wasn't there and they helped us sort it out, to the personalised and caring service, homely atmosphere and cooking, as well as their knowledge and appreciation of the history of the area and general knowledge, everything they did was exemplary."
What our guests sayNo.56 bed and breakfast
56 Route De Bapaume
La Boisselle
80300, France
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Latest news
30th November 2019
Perhaps by Vera Brittain
Perhaps some day the sun will shine again,
And I shall see that still the skies are blue,
And feel once more I do not live in vain,
Although I feel bereft of You.
Perhaps the golden meadows at my feet
Will make the sunny hours of Spring seem gay
And I shall find the white May blossoms sweet,
Though You have passed away.
Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright,
And crimson roses once again be fair,
And autumn harvest fields a rich delight,
Although You are not there.
Perhaps some day I shall not shrink in pain
To see the passing of the dying year,
And listen to the Christmas songs again
Although You cannot hear.
But, though kind Time may many joys renew,
There is one greatest joy I shall not know
Again, because my heart for loss of You
Was broken, long ago.
Vera is probably best remembered as the author of Testament of Youth, recounting her experiences during the War in which she lost her fiancé, brother and two close male friends. It is a favourite book of ours.
Vera left her studies at Somerville College, Oxford to become a VAD nurse in June 1915 and became engaged to Roland Leighton in August 1915 whilst he was on leave from the Western Front. Roland was killed by a German sniper in December 1915 near Hebuterne. Vera and Roland were due to be married during his Christmas leave; her close friend Geoffrey Thurlow was killed in 1916; Victor Richardson, another close friend, died in 1917; her brother, Edward, was killed on the Austro-Italian Front in June 1918.
She writes : “I ended the First World War with my deepest emotions paralysed if not dead,” This would not have happened if I had had one person left… I could have married Victor in memory of Roland, and Geoffrey in memory of Edward, but the war took even the second best. It left nothing. Only ambition held me to life.” Vera’s ambition was that her writing should tell the story of Women, often overlooked at that time.
Roland Leighton is buried in Louvencourt, a 20-minute drive from us and a beautiful CWGC Cemetery. Vera visited the Cemetery herself in 1921 and 1933. As we stand on the steps, we take in the view that she describes so well in Testament of Youth, the fields unchanged over the decades.
Thank you, Vera, for realizing your ambition, through personal loss, and telling the story.
This November there has been peace, the farmers have been busy harvesting late crops, ploughing and reseeding, the continual cycle of life and agriculture in these fields which have witnessed so much. The weather has been mild, wet and windy, but now the frosts have begun, winter is on its way.
