British Memorial to the Missing and Cemeteries

British Memorial and Cemeteries

The most iconic 14-18 site of Comines-Warneton inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List

Built along the Ploegsteert-Ypres road, the Ploegsteert British Memorial is a circular shrine dedicated to remembrance.
Its open rotunda and its imposing architecture, erected within Berks Extension Cemetery, generate an intense emotion.

UNESCO world recognition for 9 remembrance places in Comines-Warneton

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11447 names forever engraved in stone

What a moving tribute!
All the atrocities of war engraved on the walls of the Ploegsteert Memorial: 11,447 names of British and South African soldiers with no known grave. All of them victims of the fighting in the area surrounding Ploegsteert: Armentières, Fromelles, Kemmel, Scherpenberg, etc.
This pilgrimage sanctuary is inseparably linked to the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres (bearing some 55,000 names) and Tyne Cote Cemetery in Passendale (around 35,000 names).

Plugstreet Memory, a token of personal or collective respect

Would you like to pay special tribute to the soldiers buried in these cemeteries? Apply to sponsor a 1914-18 godchild in the context of Plugstreet Memory.

Download the application form

The stone lions: silent but so expressive

Flanking the Memorial on each side, two majestic stone lions defy the distant horizon. One is clearly aggressive, while the other seems to deliver a message of determination and serenity. Their petrified gazes scan the frontline.

The Last Post, a moving tribute

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Four years of occupation and a 12 km frontline

The 14-18 front extended over 700 km from the North Sea to Switzerland. Arras, Vimy, Passendale, Verdun, Ypres … will forever remind us of the heavy toll of the First World War. But Comines-Warneton, at the southern hinge of the Ypres Salient, is also worth mentioning. From mid-October 1914, the area was literally cut in two. The Allies occupied the Ploegsteert sector, while the Germans held Warneton and Comines. Under constant artillery pounding and danger, this 12 km front varied little until the onset of the 3rd Battle of Ypres in June 1917.

20 British war cemeteries, 8 of which are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List

Thousands of British soldiers and a few Germans are buried in the region’s 20 war cemeteries.
But no Belgian soldier is to be found in these veritable havens of peace.
After retreating, the Belgian army chose to face the enemy and flooded the Yser plain to halt the German advance.