Lille to Ypres and the Zonnebeke area: Private day trip

Nicknamed “Tyne Cot” after the resemblance of German pillboxes to workers cottages by the river Tyne in England’s Northumberland county by the Northumberland Fusiliers, initially this liberated area was home only to 343 casualties, but at the end of the Great War the land was granted to the British Empire by King Albert I of Belgium and casualties from local battles, principly Passchendaele, were interred here. Of the 11,954 soldiers buried here only 3596 have been identified, making this as much a commemoration to the unknown soldier and as a memorial to the missing.At the behest of King George V the Cross of Sacrifice, which is present at most Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries, was built on top of one of the surviving pillboxes. Two other pillboxes survive in the cemetery today. Tyne Cot is designed a laid out to have the feel of a well-ordered English churchyard.