Essex Farm Cemetery, Ieper, Belgium
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There are 1,200 WW1 servicemen buried or commemorated in this cemetery. Of these burials 103 are not identified. There are special memorials commemorating 19 casualties who are known or believed to be buried among the unidentified burials.
The cemetery was used by several British divisions holding this sector from 1915 to August 1917. Men from these divisons are buried throughout the cemetery. Plot I contains the dead of the 49th (West Riding) Division from 1915. The dead of the 38th (Welsh) Division dated in the autumn of 1916 are buried in Plot III.
After the war the cemetery was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield.
Origins of Essex Farm Cemetery
The burials on the site of this British military cemetery were begun by the French Army during the First Battle of Ypres (19th October - 22nd November 1914). The French Army was occupying this sector of the Allied Front Line north of Ypres (Ieper) until mid April 1915. The French war dead who were buried here were removed after the First World War and reburied in a French military cemetery. It is likely that they were re-interred in the French cemetery located in the northern part of the Ypres Salient named Saint-Charles-de-Potyze.
On 17th April 1915 the British Army extended the Front Line it was holding in the Ypres Salient, taking over a section of Front Line from the French Army east of Langemarck. The rear area behind the Front Lines and north of Ypres around Essex Farm, on the western bank of the Ypres-Yser canal, was also taken over by the British Army. Only a few days later the German Army launched an attack with gas and the Second Battle of Ypres began. Canadian field guns were brought to the western canal bank to assist with the defence of the sector by the British and French Armies.
Essex Farm was located on the western end of Bridge Number 4, also known as Brielen Bridge. The village of Brielen was a few kilometres to the west of this bridge.
It was from this time that the Canadian field artillery established a small, basic dressing station near Essex Farm to tend to wounded casualties in the vicinity. British casualties who died near to the location of Essex Farm were buried in this cemetery.
For more detail on the arrival of the British and Commonwealth Forces in this part of the Ypres Salient see the Battle Study on The Second Battle of Ypres:
1st Canadian Division Completes the Relief of French 11 Division and 1st Canadian Field Artillery Moves from the Reserve
The Second Battle of Ypres, 1915
Advanced Dressing Station in the Ypres-Yser Canal Bank
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The photograph is taken looking north along the Ieper-Ijser (Ypres-Yser) canal which is located on the eastern side of Essex Farm cemetery. The cemetery is situated at a lower level on the left of the canal bank, that is, to the left of the trees.
Initially a British Advanced Dressing Station (ADS) here was simply a number of dugouts cut into the spoilbank of the western (left) side of the canal. Gradually the Advanced Dressing Station was developed into a number of concrete shelters.
Essex Farm Advanced Dressing Station (ADS)15 Years Old: Rifleman Valentine Joe Strudwick
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Rifleman Valentine Joe Strudwick, number 5750, 8th Battalion The Rifle Brigade, was aged 15 when he died on 14th January 1916. He is one of the youngest British casualties of the Great War.
This boy soldier was the son of Louisa Strudwick of 70, Orchard Road, Dorking, Surrey.
His final resting place is to be found in Essex Farm cemetery at Grave Reference: Plot I. Row U. Grave 8.
49th (West Riding) Division Memorial
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The 49th Division Memorial is immediately behind Essex Farm cemetery on the western Ieper-Ijser canal bank. This division served in this sector in 1915.
'In Flanders Fields the poppies blow...'
The location of Essex Farm Advanced Dressing Station (ADS) is believed to be the place in May 1915 where the Canadian Army Doctor Major John McCrae composed his famous poem 'In Flanders Fields'. The red poppies growing amongst the military graves near to the makeshift medical bunker he was working in at that time are believed to have been the inspiration for the poem. The symbol of the red poppy and the death death of a friend, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, deeply affected John McCrae during the time of his involvement in the Second Battle of Ypres.
In Flanders Fields poemLocation of Essex Farm Cemetery
The cemetery is located on the east side of the N369 Ieper - Boezinge road, about 1.5 kilometres north of Ieper (Ypres).