Carrière Wellington

It is named after a former underground quarry which was part of a network of tunnels used by forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the First World War.

Opened in March 2008 (16 years ago) (2008-03), the museum commemorates the soldiers who built the tunnels and fought in the Battle of Arras in 1917.

From the Middle Ages through to the 19th century, the chalk beds underneath Arras were extensively quarried to supply stone for the town's buildings.

In 1916, during the First World War, the British forces controlling Arras decided to re-use the underground quarries to aid a planned offensive against the Germans, whose trenches ran through what are now the eastern suburbs of the town.

The quarries were to be linked up so that they could be used both as shelters from the incessant German shelling and as a means of conveying troops to the front in secrecy and safety.

The tunnellers named the individual quarries after their home towns - Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, Blenheim, Christchurch and Dunedin for the New Zealanders, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Crewe and London for the Britons.

The tunnels are accessed via a lift shaft that takes visitors approximately 22 m (70 ft) under the ground inside the galleries of the underground quarry.