The Tyne Cot Cemetery
Tyne Cot is a Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery located outside Passendale, near Zonnebeke in Belgium and is the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces anywhere in the world,
Began on 4 October 1917 and greatly extended after November 1918, the cemetery has as its centre piece the Cross of Sacrifice – built on top of what was a German pill box.
The cemetery records the names of 33,000 allied and commonwealth soldiers of the First World War who have no known grave – alongside 20,00 war graves.
Visiting the cemetery in 1922, King George V remarked in his speech that:
We can truly say that the whole circuit of the Earth is girdled with the graves of our dead. In the course of my pilgrimage, I have many times asked myself whether there can be more potent advocates of peace upon Earth through the years to come, than this massed multitude of silent witnesses to the desolation of war
King George V
The name, Tyne Cot, is believed to come from the resemblance of the German concrete pill boxes to Tyneside workers’ cottages – Tyne Cots – in the eyes of the Northumberland Fusiliers who fought in the Ypres Salient.
We visited the Tyne Cot cemetery on 12/11/2011.
The Unreturning Project
The Unreturning focuses on Remembrance – taking its name from a poem by Wilfred Owen, the First World War poet.
The poem, like much of Owen’s work, was published posthumously as Shropshire born Owen was killed in action on 4 November 1918 – just one week before the armistice.
Each one whom Life exiled I named and called
From The Unreturning by Wilfred Owen
The Unreturning project includes pictures from Ypres (taken on the weekend of 11/11/11) and at Tyne Cot Cemetery
The images taken on the weekend of 11/11/11 in and around Ypres have also formed the basis for an exhibition at Bishop’s Castle Town Hall to mark the centenary of the start of the First World War and to commemorate the end of the war in 1918.
These images represent and uncurated collection of images. At the end of the project, I will curate a collection of images that, when considered together, best represent the project.
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All images © W N BISHOP