Chester Farm Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery

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Chester Farm
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Entrance stone for Chester Farm cemetery
Used for those deceased 1915-1917
Established March 1915
Location 50°49′17.5″N, 2°54′4.3″E[1] near Ieper, West Flanders, Belgium
Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens
Total burials 424
Unknown
burials		 9
Burials by nation
Allied Powers:

Central Powers:
Burials by war
World War I: 424
Statistics source: wo1.be and firstworldwar.com

Chester Farm is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground for the dead of World War I located in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front.

The cemetery grounds were assigned to the United Kingdom in perpetuity by the King of Belgium in recognition of the sacrifices made by the British Empire in the defence and liberation of Belgium during the war.

Contents

[edit] Foundation

Gravestones at the rear of the cemetery, showing planting done by the CWGC.
Gravestones at the rear of the cemetery, showing planting done by the CWGC.

Commonwealth troops began using the site as a cemetery in March 1915.[2] The cemetery is named after a nearby farm.[3]

Unusually, the dead are mostly grouped by battalion,[4] departing from the usual Commission practice of there being little or no order other than date to the burials.

There are special markers for six soldiers (five British and one Canadian) who are known or believed to be buried in the cemetery but whose actual plot was lost or destroyed.[4] These stones usually have the Rudyard Kipling-derived footnote "Their glory shall not be blotted out".

[edit] Notable graves

Private Alfred Bootham of Manchester, who was killed on 9 June 1915, is buried at Chester Farm. He was 16 years old.[5] The painter ES Carlos is also buried here.[6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ wo1.be, undated, accessed 17 February 2006
  2. ^ Commonwealth War Graves Commission entry, undated, accessed 17 February 2007
  3. ^ Duffy, Michael [firstworldwar.com, 1 September 2002, accessed 17 February 2007
  4. ^ a b wo1.be, undated, accessed 17 February 2007
  5. ^ Europaschule, undated, accessed 17 February 2007
  6. ^ wo1.be, undated, accessed 17 February 2006

[edit] External links