From Dickebusch Lake to St. Eloi Part Four – Voormezeele Enclosures Nos 1 & 2

Discounting the churchyard (last post), there are two cemeteries in Voormezele today. 

Once there were four.  Well, sort of.

At the time they were created, the four cemeteries were known as enclosures, and, most sensibly, named Enclosures Nos 1, 2, 3 & 4.

The map extract from July 1917 shows the combined Enclosures Nos 1 & 2 highlighted in dark green, with Enclosure No. 3, which we shall visit next post, in pink, and the churchyard in yellow.  Of Enclosure No. 4, begun by the French in December 1914 and therefore actually the earliest of the four, there is today no sign, because it no longer exists, but we do know where it once was, as we’ll see later.

This is, in fact, three cemeteries become one.  In the background, most of the headstones are in Plot I, which was once Enclosure No. 1,…

…and some of the graves to our right,…

…and some on our left as we enter, all in what is now Plot II, were once part of the original Enclosure No. 2, and some were not.  Much more on all this later.

Neat structure…

…wherein the cemetery register…

…and visitor’s book can be found.  To our right,…

…the Stone of Remembrance,…

…and beyond,…

…the rest of the cemetery which, barring the row of nineteen headstones in the foreground (a continuation of Plot II Row D, the first headstones of which are out of shot to the left – we’ll have a closer look later) is all what was once Enclosure No. 1, and is now Plot I.  From here the cemetery appears quite large, but it isn’t really, there being just under six hundred men buried here in total, and only a dozen rows of headstones between us and the Cross in the background, and if you don’t believe me, here’s the cemetery plan, courtesy of the CWGC.

The burials in Plot I are chronological, the earliest, from February 1915, to be found in Row A, and the latest, from the autumn of 1918, at the far end near the Cross of Sacrifice,…

…and for fairly obvious reasons,…

…it rather makes sense to head for the western end of the cemetery,…

…and work our way back from there.

Cross of Sacrifice,…

…seen here looking north from the south western corner of the cemetery.  Allow your eyes to wander to the left of the Cross…

…where we find six of the eleven headstones in Row N (on the left – the remaining five can be seen behind the tree in the background), three of which are German, the only German burials in the cemetery.

The three British graves on the left are likely all 1918 burials, although the man buried in the centre is unidentified; the British grave furthest right of the three is a private of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders who died on 7th October 1918 and is the final burial, date-wise, to be made in the cemetery.  The three German headstones on the right…

…mark the graves of, on the left, a senior NCO who died in August 1917, in the centre, three men (one another senior NCO) who died in late May 1918, and on the right, two unknown soldiers.  Most likely the NCO on the left was buried by the British, and the three men in the centre (and probably the unknown men too) by the Germans, who captured Vormezeele on 29th April 1918 and would hold it until August.

The five British burials at the start of Row N are men killed in late September 1918, and beyond,…

…this view looks east, Royal Field Artillery graves in Row M nearest the camera,…

…and seen again here.  These burials are from late 1917; further along the row are ten of only seventeen Australians buried in this cemetery, all ten men killed in March 1918.

Row L (above & below).  Practically all the burials in Rows E to L are from 1917,…

…and include a considerable number of artillerymen – there are 132 men in total of the R.F.A. or R.G.A. buried here.  Those pictured above are Royal Garrison Artillery.

A decorated lieutenant of the Royal Engineers in Plot I Row K,…

…more R.G.A. graves at the end of Row J,…

…and, across the cemetery, at the start of Row H, a line of little wooden crosses left at the graves of five privates of the 1st Bn. Cambridgeshire Regiment, four of whom died on 3rd September 1917, the fifth the day after.

They appear near the top of the list of names on this GRRF,…

…Privates Frank Loker (left above & below) & William Newton Beer (right above & below),…

…Private F. Norman,…

…and Privates Archibald Fairweather M.M. (above & below) & Bertie Archibald Blinkhorn Harris (no photo, far right).

Looking south towards the Cross of Sacrifice, Plot I Row F, which stretches right the way across the cemetery, despite the gap, in the foreground.

If you look at the cemetery plan you will see that the thirty one headstones of Plot I Row E are split into three distinct sections, with a large gap between the first eleven graves (above) and the next part of the row.  On the far left, a wreath…

…and another photograph, this time of Gunner F. A. Marples, R.G.A., who died on 16th August 1917.

Canadian graves closest to the camera, these men killed in early April 1915, as Row E continues across the cemetery.

Summer 1917 casualties in Plot I Row E (above & below).

Looking back along Row E, the wreath we have just seen visible at the end of the section nearest us.  Behind, in Row D,…

…you will notice a considerable gap between the headstones, occupied by just a small white bush.  The cemetery plan marks this gap as ‘Vacant’, and the reason…

…is explained by this GRRF.  What we need to do is find the grave of Private Smith-Chappell, which I suspect we might indeed do a bit later.

Four of ten 2nd Bn. Suffolk Regiment casualties in Row D, all of whom were killed in the final few days of March 1916.  The original, regimental, nature of this cemetery can still be seen by these groups of burials,…

…in fact if we peer over Row D, nearly all the headstones in the next three rows are Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment), the regiment clearly using this spot as their regimental burial ground between May & July 1915, and there are other examples to be found in these early rows.

As we move towards the centre of the cemetery, there’s now a fourth row beyond, which is Plot II Row D (the closest row to the Stone of Remembrance – I pointed it out way back), the headstones, you might just about spot, facing the other way,…

…before we arrive at the end of Row C, where the burials are mainly from March & April 1916.  Two rows beyond…

…these Honourable Artillery Company burials from March 1915 are at the end of Row A.  The first five graves of Plot II Row D (again) are behind, on the right, the row continuing, after a gap, on the very far left, just one headstone visible.  At which point not only must we head all the way back across the cemetery,…

…that single headstone now the furthest to the left as we follow Plot II Row D as we go, but we also encounter the first row of concentration burials in the cemetery, the men in Row D originally buried in Enclosure No. 4, which, you may remember, no longer exists, although we as yet know little more about it.

This Burial Return form lists eleven of them, the names of Riflemen Lewin, O’Brien, Burnham & Mepham…

…to be found on these headstones near the end of the row.  Thirteen of the burials in the row are Rifle Brigade men killed in late February or early March 1915.

Having crossed the cemetery,…

…this view shows Plot II Row D yet again, but from the other end this time, with Plot I Row A on the far right,…

…the final headstones of Row A once again nearest the camera on the left here, as we take a final look north across Plot I.  However, we need to turn round the other way and follow the wall here on the right,…

…and now on the left, where we will find five headstones along the cemetery’s north western boundary,…

…the three on the right all unidentified burials, designated on the cemetery plan as Plot II Row G, and the two headstones nearest the camera…

…both special memorials ‘To the memory of’ two men whose graves are now lost, each headstone inscribed with ‘who was buried at the time in Voormezeele Enclosure No. 4 but whose grave was destroyed in later battles.’  The cemetery plan refers to these two headstones as Voormezeele Enclosure No. 4 Memorial, but presumably could, or should, say ‘Memorials’, plural.

Looking south from the northern corner of the cemetery, the headstones we have just visited along the wall on the right,…

…and panning left, the rest of Plot II immediately in front of us,…

…Row C nearest the camera, Rows B & A behind, and a row of special memorials along the wall.

Before we take a slightly closer look at some of these headstones, we need to return to the question of Enclosure No. 4, and more specifically, where was it, and where are the men once buried in it?  The second question is not so difficult to answer; we know that some of the men now buried here in Plot II were once buried in Enclosure No. 4, because their documents include Burial Return forms (see below), some of which state as such, and which also, in turn, answer the first question,…

…because there are map references for their original burial sites.  This example, which lists the ten men now buried in Row C – the ten headstones in the front row on the left in the previous photo – gives a reference of 31 c.3.6,…

…and this one (which shows the reburials now in Plot II Rows E & F – we’ll see them shortly), a reference of 31 c.3.7.  Checking all the other Burial Return forms revealed no other map references,…

…and thus we know the site, if not the actual size, of Enclosure No. 4.  The two map references are marked on this map as orange & pink squares (with the current cemetery shadowed in brown) and Enclosure No. 4 must have been within these two squares.  Original graves within the small mauve triangle, where the orange square overlaps the current cemetery, had no need to be exhumed; the remaining British graves in the orange & pink squares were all exhumed and reinterred a few yards away, here in Plot II,…

…which explains the current mix of original (shown in green) and concentration (red) burials in Plot II.  And while we are looking at this part of the cemetery plan, note that the pathway from the entrance splits the first three rows, with the majority of the graves in each row to the right, and the final few on the left.  Near the top of this extract, Row E, marked in yellow,…

…contains the four unidentified men originally buried in Enclosure No. 4 who were found with just ‘G.S. (General Service) uniform, boots’, as listed on the second of the Burial Return forms you have just seen.  The headstone on the far right…

…is the only one inscribed with a date of death, 24th November 1916.

The blue row on the map, Row F, was once made up of special memorials to the five named men on the same form, who had been exhumed from Enclosure No. 4, identified, and yet whose new graves were somehow lost,…

…as this form originally showed.  And then, according to the note at the bottom, all five men were once again found,…

…a fact confirmed on this much later form,…

…none of which explains why one of them, Private Bailey, here on the left, still has a headstone with ‘Known to be buried in this cemetery’ inscribed on it.  The others have long been changed; interestingly, all five headstones, if you enlarge the previous shot of all five, still bear the line by Kipling used on special memorials, ‘Their glory shall not be blotted out’.

As we are in this corner of the cemetery, we might as well continue with these graves, the final ones in Rows A (furthest from camera), B & C, with Row F on the right.

The five graves in Row C are all Canadians, all original burials, and only one (off to the right and not pictured) is identified.  And although all the headstones feature a Canadian emblem, there’s another interesting headstone variation to be seen at this end.  The two men buried in the centre and on the right, their identities totally unknown, are buried under headstones inscribed with ‘A Canadian Soldier of the Great War’.  The headstone of the man on the left, name unknown but regiment identified as 25th Bn. Canadian Infantry, has ‘A Soldier of the Great War’.  The four identified Canadians in the row behind, Row B, are all concentrations,…

…and the burials in the final row, Row A, are once again original.  Three Canadians, two unidentified, are sandwiched between two unknown British soldiers, the man on the far left…

…an unknown man of the Cambridgeshire Regiment, one of forty unidentified men buried in the cemetery.

Which leaves us with the remainder of Rows A to C to visit, across the paved entrance pathway, along with the row of special memorials along the cemetery wall.

As the colours on the cemetery plan extract show, Row C, in the foreground, consists of both original and concentration graves, the burials behind in Row B are all concentrations,…

…and those in Row A (left) all originals.  Along the wall…

…these headstones are all special memorials, fourteen in total, nine to the right of the gap (the second from the camera remembers a nineteen year old King’s Royal Rifle Corps rifleman who died on 8th January 1915, and who was, originally, the first man buried in Enclosure No. 2),…

…and five on the left,…

…all of whom are ‘Known to be buried in this cemetery’, although their actual burial sites are long lost due to later shelling, probably in 1918.

And at last, at the very end of the row, we find the grave of Private Smith-Chappell (close-up below).  However, there is no longer any sign of a memorial cross as mentioned on the earlier GRRF, although the names of the men once inscribed on it can today all be found listed on the Menin Gate.

And if you’re still here after all that, Gold Star.  And if you actually understood it all, Gold Star Plus, if such a thing exists.  Anyway, you saw the map earlier, and you thus know that our next stop (click the link) is less than a hundred yards north (off to the right) of here, so I suggest we get on with it.

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7 Responses to From Dickebusch Lake to St. Eloi Part Four – Voormezeele Enclosures Nos 1 & 2

  1. Morag L Sutherland says:

    I have not been in this cemetery but I have visited one across the road. Look forward to what you have to say aboit it. This post map with different colours re concentration burials was most useful. Visual aids we called them when teaching !

    • Magicfingers says:

      Visual aids take a while to construct, though – don’t expect them except when they really, really help. The cemetery across the road that you’ve been to is much larger than this one, by about a thousand men. It’s a mix of original & concentrations too, and I think I discovered some interesting stuff. Coming soon!

  2. Alan Bond says:

    Thank you I managed Gold Star but not a plus. I have looked at few of GRR forms and often wonder how accurate they are especially relating to exhumation and rebuttals which must have been the worst job anyone could wish for.

    • Morag L Sutherland says:

      I am amazed at what was achieved by the men who dig the digging and the what recorders put down on paper . Hundreds or thousands of namex and such detail and corrections also. All done by hand with no computer yo cross check . Quite humbling

    • Magicfingers says:

      Good enough, Alan, good enough. Without going into lots of detail, I think the GRRFs are probably accurate; you may have seen the post-war maps created with body numbers per square on the map, and they certainly covered as much ground as possible on multiple occasions to find bodies after the war.

  3. nicholas Kilner says:

    A strikingly high proportion of artillery men it seems to me. I wonder if it was a particularly exposed area for them to be operating in.
    Quite amazing to see the date on that GRRF, 1934. Just goes to show that they really did keep at it for a very long time afterwards. I think thats got to be one of the latest i’ve ever seen.
    Nice work M

    • Magicfingers says:

      Main route to/from the west to St. Eloi – must have been heavily and consistently shelled. And there must have been British artillery batteries everywhere around here – have just been reading a Philip Gibbs book which describes in great detail just how many guns there were behind the lines in Flanders. Anyway, I thankee!

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