Ypres Salient Memorial Museum 1914 - 18 Web Site
- Grote Market 34, Leper (Ypres) Belgium
- Admission Charge ~ Closed Monday
- Resting Place for 12,000 Commonwealth Soldiers.
- The walls bear the names of 35,000 names of those who have no known grave.
- Designed by Hubert Baker, sculpture by FV Blundstone.
- There are three apses and two rotundas.
- The central apse forms the New Zealand Memorial from the battle of Broodseinde and the third battle of Ypres (Passchendale).
- The other two, the rotundas and the wall itself, carry the names of United Kingdom dead who fell between 15 August 1917 and the Armistice.
- Designed by H Charlton Bradshaw and the sculptor was Sir Gilbert Ledward.
- The names of 11000 men are inscribed on the walls from the battles of:
- Armentier 1914, Aubers Ridge, Loose and Fromelles 1915
- Estaires 1916, Hazebrouck, Sherpenberg and Outtersteen 1918
- Artist who, to relive the monotony of sitting in mud and cold started to draw on any thing he could find, ration box’s, cottage walls...
- He started the series entitled Fragments of France, featuring the “old soldier Bill”
- His cartoons won the approval of many soldiers, brought much needed light relief to many, they went on to be published weekly in “The Bystander” Magazine
This page gives a little bit more info into the sites listed on the one day tour, if you have been linked via another page please use the page back arrows on your browser to return.
As the troops left Ypres for the trenches at Passchendale or on the Menin Road ridge, they all passed through the the gate in the vast walls, built by Louis XIV, the gate was infact just a gap between two ends of the wall.
Today there stands a Hall of Memory, dedicated to over 54,000 officers and men, 36.5 meters long and 20 meters wide with a 9 meter archway at either end. Designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield, it was built of reinforced concrete faced with Euville stone and red brick, with the names carved into Portland Stone panels.
Inscribed over the two main arches are the words:
TO THE ARMIES OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE WHO STOOD HERE FROM 1914 TO 1918 AND TO THOSE OF THEIR DEAD WHO HAVE NO KNOWN GRAVE.
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