Lancashire Cottage Cemetery is situated about three quarters of a mile east of Ploegsteert Village along what was once the main route to the front lines, only a short distance down the road in front of the hamlet of Le Gheer (now simply Gheer). Begun by the East Lancashire Regiment and the Hampshire Regiment in November 1914, the cemetery was used regularly until early 1916, and occasionally afterwards.
Apart from a few months during 1918, Ploegsteert Village remained behind the Allied lines throughout the First World War, troops moving up through the village towards the front lines to the north and east of Ploegsteert Wood. Unsurprisingly, German artillery frequently targeted the crossroads in the centre of Ploegsteert, although the village never suffered quite the devastation that some others further east were subjected to.
In the centre of the village, this war memorial commemorates both military and civilian dead of both World Wars.
Trees on the western outskirts of Ploegsteert Wood loom above the Cross of Sacrifice at Strand Military Cemetery.
Before we start this part of our tour, I should first mention that I have visited the Ploegsteert Memorial and its adjacent cemeteries a number of times in recent years, so you will forgive me, when blue skies suddenly turn to grey, for using photographs from any or all of my trips to illustrate this section.
The Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing. Originally intended to be erected in Lille, it stands in Berks Cemetery Extension and commemorates some 11,000 men who died in the area mainly to the south and west of the Salient, as well as across the French border around Armentières, and even further south on the Loos battlefields, and who, other than some of the Loos casualties, were killed, not during major battles, but during the day-to-day fighting that epitomised the trench warfare of the First World War.
Not far down the track we arrive at the largest of the cemeteries within the wood, Rifle House Cemetery, begun by the London Rifle Brigade in November 1914.
We retrace our steps down the path, before turning left to go south into the heart of the wood.
