Royal Berkshire Cemetery Extension, Ploegsteert, Belgium.

The village of Ploegsteert is at the very south of the area associated with Ypres; in fact it is not regarded as part of the 'Ypres Salient' by many. It is only about two miles north of Armenitieres, close to the French border and eight miles south of Ypres. To those who served and fought here during the Great War it became known as "Plugstreet".

Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing.

In the Royal Berkshire Cemetery Extension is the Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing. This is a circular structure, supported by pillars, around the outside of which are the panels inscribed with the names of the missing. On the top of the memorial are inscribed the words "Berks Cemetery Extension". Two large stone lions flank the memorial, which was designed by H. Charlton Bradshaw, and opened in 1931. The opening ceremony was attended by large crowds, and pictures published in The Times show some of them using the plinths of the lions in order to secure a better view of the ceremony!
11,369 men with no known grave are commemorated here, with their names (as at other memorials) arranged by Regiment, and then alphabetically within each regiment. The inscription on the interior of the circular top of the memorial shows that the memorial commemorates "those who fell fighting between the River Douve and the towns of Estaires and Furnes". The area covered runs from approximately near Warneton in the north (about three miles north-east of Ploegsteert) to Estaires in the south and includes Armentieres and Bois Grenier. The registers for the Memorial give information on the relevant battles.

View from the Memorial to the Cemetery

The Cemetery

The (Royal) Berkshire Cemetery Extension was started in June 1916 and used until September 1917. At the Armistice, the Cemetery consisted of the graves in Plot 1 only (which is to the right of the memorial as you look at the cemetery from the road, with the graves set at an angle to the road). In 1930, Plots 2 and 3 were added by moving graves from Rosenburg Chateau Military Cemetery and Extension, which was located north-west of here. This was an unusual circumstance; many smaller cemeteries and isolated burials had been moved in the years immediately following the Armistice, but these graves were moved much later.

This happened because the Rosenburg Chateau Military Cemetery and Extension stood in the grounds of the chateau of that name, and the owner felt that, as he rebuilt his house, the cemetery would stand too close to it. Despite pleas from the British and Belgian authorities, he remained firm, and eventually the 475 men buried there were exhumed and moved the half mile distance to this, their final resting place. In March 1930 The Times reported that "each body, as it was reverently taken from the earth, was placed in a coffin draped with the Union Jack and removed by motor ambulance to the Royal Berkshire Cemetery Extension". This now contains 876 burials in total.