Oosttaverne Wood Cemetery

• Country Belgium
• Total identified casualties 449 Find these casualties
• Region West-Vlaanderen
• Identified casualties from First & Second World War
• GPS Coordinates Latitude: 50.79401, Longitude: 2.90232

Location information

Oosttaverne Wood Cemetery is located 6 Kms south of Ieper town centre on the Rijselseweg N336 connecting Ieper to Lille. From Ieper town centre the Rijselstraat runs from the market square, through the Lille Gate (Rijselpoort) and directly over the crossroads with the Ieper ring road. The road name then changes to the Rijselseweg. 3 Kms along the Rijselseweg the road forks with the N365. The N336 is the left hand fork towards Lille. The cemetery is located 2 Kms after this left hand fork on the right hand side of the road.

Visiting information

ARRIVAL

The route to the cemetery is signposted.

PARKING

There are spaces for multiple vehicles (up to 6) to park in a layby that runs along the front of the cemetery, within 4 metres of the main entrance.

The ground is flat and firm with a tarmac surface.

Between the layby and the main entrance is a shallow concrete gulley. It is 5 centimetres at the deepest point and 20 centimetres wide. Care should be taken crossing the gulley as it is the same colour as the surrounding tarmac. Behind the gulley is compacted gravel leading to the paved entrance. There is a slotted covered drainage channel approximately 10 centimetres wide in front of the paving.

ACCESS LAYOUT AND MAIN ENTRANCE

Access into the cemetery is through a large memorial entrance building. There are two shallow stone steps, each approximately 7.5 centimetres high leading up from the paving in front through the central archway. There are a further two stone steps on the other side of the building leading down into the cemetery from three archways. There is a 100 mm wide dirt strip between the paving and the grass.

The cemetery is built over three sections, with each section on a different level and separated by a low-level stone wall and three stone steps leading up to the next section. On either side of the steps there is a vertical drop of up to 400 mm to the lower section.

It is possible to bypass the steps at the far end of each section of wall. There is gently sloping grass up alongside the boundary walls.

The Stone of Remembrance is up the first set of steps and positioned at the front of the second section of cemetery.

The Cross of Sacrifice is up the second set of steps and at the front of the third section of the cemetery.

There are stone bench seating areas in the memorial entrance building and adjacent to the boundary walls facing the Cross of Sacrifice on the upper section of the cemetery.

The Register Box is located inside the entrance building above one of the stone benches.

ALTERNATIVE ACCESS

There is an alternative entrance on the right-hand corner of the cemetery within 2 metres of the parking layby.

The ground surface is flat and firm and changes from tarmac to gravel, crossing the shallow drainage gulley. Underneath the gate is a stone kerb approximately 20 centimetres wide, level with the gravel and the grass inside the cemetery.

There is a mid-level, thigh height, black metal gate with a sliding latch that opens the right-side section, and an additional vertical latch that opens the other section. Each section is approximately 80 centimetres wide and open inwards into the cemetery.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The cemetery is permanently open.

History information

The "Oosttaverne Line" was a German work running northward from the river Lys to the Comines Canal, passing just east of Oosttaverne. It was captured on 7 June 1917, the first day of the Battle of Messines, the village and the wood being taken by the 19th (Western) and 11th Divisions. Two cemeteries, No.1 and No.2, were then made by the IX Corps Burial Officer on the present site and used until September 1917. They are contained in Plot I, II, and III of the present cemetery, which was completed after the Armistice when graves were brought in from the surrounding battlefields (including many from Hill 60) and from the following smaller cemeteries:-

HOOGEMOTTE FARM GERMAN CEMETERY, WERVICQ, on the Belgian side of the Lys, towards Comines; a permanent cemetery, which contained, in addition to German graves, those of twelve soldiers from the United Kingdom who fell in April, 1918.

HOUTHEM-LES-YPRES GERMAN CEMETERY, on the West side of the village; a permanent cemetery in which 17 soldiers and airmen from the United Kingdom were buried in 1916-17.

IN DE STER GERMAN CEMETERY, BECELAERE, named from a cabaret on the road to Broodseinde; made by the XXVII Reserve Corps, and containing the graves of 53 soldiers from the United Kingdom who fell in October and November, 1914.

KOEKUIT GERMAN CEMETERY, LANGEMARCK, on the road to Houthulst, in which eight soldiers from the United Kingdom were buried in October, 1914.

TENBRIELEN-AMERIKA GERMAN CEMETERY, in the Haut-Bois, North of Comines, now containing about 850 graves. Six soldiers from the United Kingdom were buried here in April, 1917.

THREE HOUSES GERMAN CEMETERY, HOLLEBEKE (or HOLLEBEKE CEMETERY No. 60), on the Kortevilde-Verbrandenmolen road, across the canal; three soldiers from the United Kingdom and two from Canada were buried there in 1916.

ZWAANHOEK GERMAN CEMETERY, BECELAERE, on the South side of the Molenhoek-Reutel road; made by the XXVII Reserve Corps, and containing the graves of six soldiers from the United Kingdom who fell in October, 1914.

CROONAERT CHAPEL was a shrine in a hamlet on the Wytschaete-Voormezeele road; and the cemetery is 160 yards West of that road, a mile North of Wytschaete village. It was in No Man's Land before the Battle of Messines, 1917

During the Second World War, the British Expeditionary Force was involved in the later stages of the defence of Belgium following the German invasion in May 1940, and suffered many casualties in covering the withdrawal to Dunkirk.

The cemetery contains 1,119 First World War burials, 783 of which are unidentified. Scattered among these graves are 117 from the Second World War, five of them unidentified.

The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.