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Yorkshire
Regiment War Graves, - Santuary Wood Cemetery, Belgium |
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Sanctuary Wood Cemetery, - view from Cemetery entrance looking towards the
Cross of Sacrifice at the back.
Photo : Richard Roberts, <richard.nsw@googlemail.com>)
Sanctuary Wood is one of the larger woods in the commune of Zillebeke. It was named in November 1914, when it was used to screen troops behind the front line. It was the scene of fighting in September 1915 and was the centre of the Battle of Mount Sorrel (2-13 June 1916) involving the 1st and 3rd Canadian Divisions.
There were three Commonwealth cemeteries at Sanctuary Wood before June 1916, all made in May-August 1915. The first two were on the western end of the wood, the third in a clearing further east. All were practically obliterated in the Battle of Mount Sorrel, but traces of the second were found and it became the nucleus of the present Sanctuary Wood Cemetery.
At the Armistice, the cemetery contained 137 graves. From 1927 to 1932, Plots II-V were added and the cemetery extended as far as 'Maple Avenue', when graves were brought in from the surrounding battlefields. They came mainly from the communes immediately surrounding Ypres, but a few were taken from Nieuport (on the coast) and smaller cemeteries.
Most of the burials in the samaller cemeteries were from the 1914 Battles of Ypres and the Allied offensive of the autumn of 1917.
There are now 1,989 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in the cemetery. 1,353 of the burials are unidentified. Many graves, in all five plots, are identified in groups but not individually.
In Plot I is buried Lieutenant G.W.L. Talbot, in whose memory Talbot House
at Poperinghe was established in December 1915. The first list of the graves
was made by his brother the Reverend N.S. Talbot, MC, later Bishop of Pretoria.
Amongst the headstones three are for soldiers of the Yorkshire Regiment.
All photos are by Richard Roberts, <richard.nsw@googlemail.com>.
Select a thumbnail image for a larger sized image to open in a new window.
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Major Harold Carey Matthews.
4th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment. King George's Coronation Medal. Son of F. W. W. Matthews, J.P.; husband of Marjory Forster Woodhouse (formerly Matthews), of 23, Inverleith Place, Edinburgh. Served in the South African War. Killed 25 April 1915. Aged 36. NOTE : The date on Major Matthews' headstone puts the date of death as 25 April 1918. This should, of course, read 25 April 1915. |
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Private Patrick Murphy. 12784.
7th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment. Brother of Ellen Murphy, of 68, Frances St, Middlesbrough. Died 26 July 1915. Aged 24. Born Middlesbrough, Enlisted Middlesbrough. "BURIED NEAR THIS SPOT" |
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Private James Street. 7802.
2nd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment. Husband of the late Elizabeth Street. Killed 6 November 1914. Aged 28. Born Pontefract, Enlisted Bradford. Comment by Richard Roberts;- "Unusually for a CWGC cemetery, this headstone was very dirty as you can see and needs a good brush down." |
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Sanctuary
Wood Cemetery, - view from the side.
(Photo : Richard Roberts, <richard.nsw@googlemail.com>)