Ploegsteert Memorial

The Ploegsteert Memorial is located 12.5 kilometres south of Ypres town centre, on the N365 leading from Ypres to to Armentières.

The memorial, which was designed by H. Chalton Bradshaw, is an unusual circular temple, guarded by two lions - one of which snarls defiantly, whilst the other gazes benignly into the distance.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website describes how "the Ploegsteert Memorial commemorates the 11,447 servicemen of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in this sector during the First World War and have no known grave. The memorial serves the area from the line Caestre-Dranoutre-Warneton to the north, to Haverskerque-Estaires-Fournes to the south, including the towns of Hazebrouck, Merville, Bailleul and Armentieres, the Forest of Nieppe, and Ploegsteert Wood. The original intention had been to erect the memorial in Lille. Those commemorated by the memorial did not die in major offensives, such as those which took place around Ypres to the north, or Loos to the south. Most were killed in the course of the day-to-day trench warfare which characterised this part of the line, or in small scale set engagements, usually carried out in support of the major attacks taking place elsewhere."

Amongst those commemorated on the memorial are James Thomas Ormerod (Panel 6) and John Robert Ormrod (Panel 3).