Sunday 13 March 2016

Tyne Cot

No visit to the former Western Front would be complete without the inclusion of a war cemetery.  Sadly there are plenty to choose from - my Michelin map is fairly black with them.  We settled on the Commonwealth cemetery at Tyne Cot.  With 12,000 - I'll repeat that - twelve thousand individual graves and a memorial wall bearing a further 34,000 names it is the largest Commonwealth cemetery in Belgium.
I'd hardly call the visit uplifting but then that's hardly the point.  At least I got to go home afterwards.
The approach takes the visitor last several regimental memorials.

I was interested to see that the Bedfordshire Rgt memorial was supported by the Masonic Lodges of that county.

The cemetery is located on a ridge which was the German front line.  The Germans had a commanding view (above) across the Allied trenches and reinforced the position with a number of substantial bunkers (below).

I made it my mission to find the grave of at least one Black Watch soldier, and followed this photo with a random selection.





The sheer scale of the place is well, overwhelming.  There follows few but words but hopefully the photos speak volumes.










4 comments:

Robert (Bob) Cordery said...

Tim Gow,

What struck us when we visited Tyne Cot was the silence. We heard no birdsong all the time we were there.

All the best,

Bob

Al said...

Great posting Tim

Cheers

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

I find Great War headstones chilling, a war now passed out of "living memory" despite all the testimony, photographs and film (even remastered into colour)

Thanks for the post Tim

Conrad Kinch said...

Thank you for sharing those Tim.