TOPIC:

Shaun, look back 2 yrs 4 mo in this thread and you'll see a brief discussion of this view. In my opinion it's the outlying LF "trench"- like all those on the summit it was just a parapet - (here arrowed in the map from Maurice). It no longer exists. It is, I think, the "trench" in which the LF surendered just after 12:00 noon and which Jan Cilliers of the Pretoria Cdo briefly held. I think it likely that the two boer graves you'll see on the satellite image at -28.64900, 29.51968 may be dug into this feature.
Rob

Thank you Sturgy! For those of us who will unfortunately never visit Spion Kop, these photos are terrific for visiting it vicariously!

A photograph I haven't come across before, seemingly taken shortly after the erection of the main monument. The marble crosses to Lt J J R Mallock, Lancashire Fusiliers, and Lt T F Flower Ellis, TMI, have yet to be added, and that to Lt H S McCorquodale, TMI, appears to have been damaged with part of the cross lying on top of the grave fill (monument on the far right). Lieutenant Trevor's memorial was realigned in the 1970s.



.Courtesy of the McGregor Museum, Kimberley.



Roughly the same view as it appears today (previously posted by djb).



..

There's available online an album of photos from Colonel H.M. Morton, RAMC
wellcomecollection.org/works/d3wrbm6j/items?canvas=2
It contains this view of Spion Kop plus many lovely images of the terrain in the battles to relieve Ladysmith. My guess is they were taken about 1902.
The album includes pictures showing where Long's guns were positioned at Colenso, the sites being clearly marked with white stones at that time.

What is significant about the photo above, is that it confirms that the huge and mysterious "mass grave"which leads to the Royal Lancaster memorial and which has (I think) only existed since the 1960s or 1970s, does not exist at this time.
Here's the same memorial now and the feature that leads to it.

Other early photos confirm its absence, except as a line of stones marking a path.