Daours Communal Cemetery Extension

Location information

Daours is a village in the Department of the Somme, about 10 kilometres east of Amiens and is north-west of Villers-Bretonneux.

Go through the village of Corbie on the D1 in the direction of Fouilloy-Amiens (A1 Paris) and then enter and travel through the village of Fouilloy on the D1 in the direction of Daours-Amiens (A16). Enter Daours and at the traffic lights turn right in the direction of Pont-Noyelle on the D115 - where the first CWGC signpost will be seen. Carry on for 0.4 kilometres and Daours Communal Cemetery is on the left hand side of the road. The Extension is on the south side of the Communal Cemetery.

Visiting information

ARRIVAL

The cemetery is signposted. The cemetery is located next to Daours Communal Cemetery, on Rue de Pont Noyelle (D115), on the northern edge of Daours.

PARKING

There is a large paved car park with space for multiple vehicles on the north side of the Communal Cemetery, approximately 70 metres from the main entrance to the cemetery.

There is a another large paved car park with space for multiple vehicles on the south side of the CWGC cemetery, approximately 80 metres from the main entrance to the cemetery. There is a raised paved footpath that runs from the carpark to the entrance of the cemetery.

There are two laybys in front of the Communal Cemetery approximately 25 metres from the entrance to the CWGC cemetery. The surface is compacted gravel bound with stone kerbs. There is a raised narrow pavement, 600 mm wide between the layby and the cemetery fence. The pavement widens to 900mm in front of the CWGC cemetery. There is a raised pavement on the opposite side of the road with a marked crosswalk opposite the CWGC cemetery entrance.

ACCESS LAYOUT AND MAIN ENTRANCE

The main entrance opens onto the pavement on the edge of the main road. There are 3 stone steps up to the paved entrance. There are 2 bollards located between two tall stone pillars. The space between the bollards is 90 centimetres. A metal chain can be unhooked from the right-side bollard. The interior grass is level with the paving.

The Cross of Sacrifice is at the rear of the cemetery in line with the entrance.

The Stone of Remembrance is located between 2 memorial shelters on the left side of the cemetery. There is a stone kerb level with the grass sunning in front of the Stone of Remembrance in line with the shelter buildings.

The shelters both have internal stone bench seating areas, with step-free access from the grass to the interior paved area.

The Register Box is in the shelter closest to the main entrance above the stone bench.

ALTERNATIVE ACCESS

Adjacent to the memorial shelter building closest to the road is a 1.5 m wide opening in the boundary wall. There is a chain that unhooks on the right side of the opening. There is a stone kerb level with the grass on either side in the opening in the wall.

To access this entrance the distance from the parking area adjacent to the CWGC cemetery is approximately 40 metres across grass. Weather conditions will affect the condition of the grass.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The cemetery is permanently open.

History information

The preparations for the Somme offensive of July 1916 brought a group of casualty clearing stations (the 1st/1st South Midland, 21st, 34th, 45th and Lucknow, section "B") to Daours. The extension to the communal cemetery was opened and the first burials made in Plots I, II, Row A of Plot III and the Indian plot, between June and November 1916.

The Allied advance in the spring of 1917 took the hospitals with it, and no further burials were made in the cemetery until April 1918, when the Germans recovered the ground they had lost. From April to the middle of August 1918, the extension was almost a front line cemetery. In August and September 1918, the casualty clearing stations came forward again (the 5th, 37th, 41st, 53rd, 55th and 61st) but in September, the cemetery was closed.

There are now 1,231 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in Daours Communal Cemetery Extension. The total includes special memorials to four men of the Chinese labour corps whose graves in White Chateau Cemetery, Cachy, could not be located. The adjoining communal cemetery contains two First World War burials made before the extension was opened.

The extension was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.