Category Archives: The Road to Passchendaele – Third Ypres 1917

Spent the afternoon photographing some local war memorials and churchyards that I hadn’t got around to visiting yet, and am now settling down in the Man-Cave to watch the Champions League Final.  With a beer.

We arrive at Passchendaele New British Cemetery beneath a glooming sky.

The Passchendaele Memorial can be found in the south western suburbs of Passchendaele, a small town now, as it extends along the various roads that meet in its centre.

Passchendaele, or Passendale, as the village is now called, church.

Up on the Passchendaele Ridge, this memorial to the 85th Canadian Infantry Battalion, the Nova Scotia Highlanders, can be found in the fields where they fought in the last days of October 1917.

The New Zealand Memorial at s’Graventafel is one of a number of similarly styled New Zealand memorials along the Western Front that commemorate actions involving the  New Zealand Division, sited on or near the battlefields where they fought.

31st July 2017 will mark exactly one hundred years since the start of the Third Battle of Ypres, the Battle of Passchendaele as it is popularly known.  In advance of that anniversary, this post, and the following five, will complete … Continue reading →