Tucked away in the north-western part of Belgium is the city of Ypres. School trips to Ypres will show you some of the Belgian countryside, but while you can easily visit the area for the delights of the modern city, it is impossible to ignore its integral part in the historical events of World War One. While you are in Ypres, there are several major landmarks that you should visit to get a better understanding of this location's importance as an Allied stronghold during the war. For a feeling of what the trenches might have been like, visit the Hill 62 & Sanctuary Wood Museum, and then visit the Menin Gate before paying your respects to the lives lost at the Tyne Cot and Langemarck cemeteries.
Hill 62 & Sanctuary Wood Museum - After the First World War ended, people came back to the lands that were previously occupied and tried to get on with their former lives. But when one farmer came back to his land, at Hill 62, he found the remains of the Allied trenches, and made the decision to leave some of them as they were. School trips to the Hill 62 & Sanctuary Wood Museum can take students to some of the original trenches to get a semblance of what they might have been like at the time. In the museum itself, there are artefacts from the war - including remnants from the nearby battlefields, 3D photographs, and even the cook's cart.
Menin Gate - Officially known as the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing, this large triumphal arch is situated on the eastern exit of the town and marks one of the roads that the Allied forces marched down. Reginald Blomfield designed the arch in 1921 and it was opened in 1927. As students stand under the arch on school trips, they can take a moment to consider the 54,896 names of the Commonwealth soldiers who were never found. Sadly, the arch was too small to hold all the names and a cut off date of 15 August 1917 was enforced.
Tyne Cot and Langemarck cemeteries - When the cut off date was enacted for the Menin Gate, the remaining 34,984 missing Commonwealth soldiers' names were inscribed at Tyne Cot on the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing. Tyne Cot is a cemetery for the Commonwealth soldiers and was assigned to the United Kingdom by King Albert I of Belgium. Tyne Cot Cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker and contains 11,954 graves, over half of which are unnamed. When school trips take students to Tyne Cot they will undoubtedly be touched, but perhaps even more moving is the Langemarck cemetery - where they will pass by a mass grave with a single large headstone denoting over 25,000 souls buried there. The second part of the cemetery contains 10,143 soldiers, and the third, and final part is the resting place of the 3,000 school children who were also killed in the first battle of Ypres.
Angela Bowden works for EST (Equity School Travel), the UK's largest educational travel company, providing school trips for secondary schools, primary schools and colleges. School trips with EST can encompass a wide range of learning and more in worldwide destinations.
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