Core Location 14 – Menin Gate Memorial, Ieper

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Directions – No directions need be given to this, probably the most iconic of any British Empire war memorial anywhere in the world. If in doubt, simply go the Grote Markt in the centre of Ieper and ask any passer-by.

Practical Information – As anyone will tell you, the best time to visit the Menin Gate is at 8:00pm to hear the playing of the “Last Post” by buglers of the Ieper Fire Brigade. This event happens at the same time on every day of the year. It is a fitting and quite moving way to end a day spent exploring the Salient. Large crowds in the summer months and around Remembrance Day make it best to arrive a little early to secure a good viewing position. A short video clip of the ceremony can be seen here.

Historical Notes – The Menin Gate was one of the original gates build by Vauban, the great French fortress engineer, when he designed the town’s defences in the 17th Century. By the 20th Century, these defences had fallen into decline and, when the First World War began, the gate was merely an opening in the ramparts flanked by two bronze lions. During the war, however, as more and more young men passed through “the Gap” on their war to the front, some never to return, it increasingly assumed a symbolic significance and was chosen as the site for the main British Empire war memorial in the Ypres Salient.

In an age where the overuse of the adjective “awesome” has led to it almost losing any meaning whatsoever, this is a monument, which reminds us of just what that word really stands for. Designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield, and sitting on a massive concrete slab 36ft down to prevent it sinking into the Flander’s soil, it is 135ft long, 104ft wide, 80ft high and weighs over 20,000 tons. On its limestone panels it records the names of nearly 55,000 men from Great Britain and the British Empire, killed in the Salient, who have no known grave. They include all the Canadian, Australian and South African missing and the British missing up to 15th August 1917 (the remainder being on the Tyne Cot Memorial) as well as eight Victoria Cross winners.

High up on top of the arch a great reclining stone lion gazes out to the east, up the Menin Road, towards the frontline. In Blomfield's words, "...a symbol of the latent strength and heroism of our race".

Eyewitness Account – Huntley Gordon, in his book “The Unreturning Army”, recalled in July 1917:

"For sheer concentrated shelling the Menin Gate stands alone. There is of course no gate there, merely a gap in the stone ramparts of the town, and a causeway crossing the wide moat beyond. Most of the traffic supplying the line in front of Ypres must pass through here, and the Boche takes heavy toll of it – night and day. The bridge, whether originally arched or not, is now a solid mass of stonework, supplemented, indeed cemented, by the remains of smashed vehicles and the fragmented bodies of horses and men. In fact everything that passes over it has contributed to its upkeep. During lulls in the shelling, men dash out from their shelters on the massive ramparts, and patch the holes in the road as best they can."