Northern France & Belgium WWI Literature English, Drama & Performing Arts School Trips & Tours

On Ypres school trips, students can visit this fascinating site near the original front lines, featuring well-preserved British trenches, covered passageways, and a section of the underground tunnel system. The museum consists of two rooms housing many artefacts removed from the battlefields plus a large and rare collection of three dimensional photo images inside special viewing boxes.

Tyne Cot Cemetery is the resting place of 11,956 soldiers, and the largest British Military Cemetery in the world. The panels in the rear wall hold the names of 34,888 missing soldiers.

A sombre, foreboding place; this cemetery contains the bodies of more than 40,000 German troops, over half of which lie in a mass grave. Here, your students will learn how Germany chose to remember its war dead and how their thoughts of war were shaped by the slaughter of the German pupil battalions by British regular troops in 1914, known as the Massacre of the Innocents, an important challenge to pre-war ideas of the glories of warfare. The entrance to the exhibition contains a memorial room dedicated specificallyto the dead of the Student Battalions. In the 1930s, the memory of this battle was incorporated into Hitler’s perverse Cult of the Dead. 

Probably most famous because of the connection between the preserved British bunker and the Canadian poet, John McCrae, this cemetery and the nearby canal bank, formerly the British Front Line, are also well worth visiting.

The largest and the most important of the British memorials to the Missing in The Salient, The Menin Gate holds the names of 54,896 soldiers of the British Empire. This memorial marked the start of one of the main roads out of Ypres towards the Front Line. Following a meal at a local restaurant, your students will witness the moving ‘Last Post Ceremony’ which takes place every evening at 8pm.

High Wood was of tremendous significance during the Battle of the Somme. The wood was first attacked on 14th July, 1916, but the British were unable to take it. The British 4th and the German 2nd and 1st armies continued to battle for control of the wood until the final assault on 15th September 1916.

The area is of interest because the war poets Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon served here with the First Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers in early 1916. They mention many of the place names around here in their memoirs.

This burial site for some of the British Empire and Commonwealth troops killed during the Battle of the Somme. It is located near to the village of Mametz. The cemetery grounds were assigned to the British Empire in perpetuity by the French state in recognition of the sacrifices made by the Allies in the defence of France during World War I. Most of the graves are of men from the 8th and 9th Battalions of the Devonshire Regiment.

The largest surviving crater on the Western Front, created by a mine explosion on 1st July 1916, is one of the most impressive sites on the Somme Battlefields. School trips to the Somme offer students the chance to visit this remarkable location, providing a powerful insight into the scale of the battles fought during World War I and the strategies employed.

This is the largest memorial to the British missing on the Western Front, containing the names of over 73,000 men who died in the Somme section before 20th March 1918 and have no known graves. The visitor centre houses an informative exhibition designed to aid understanding of the history of Thiepval during WWI.

Built as a memorial copy of the tower that the 36th Ulster Division had trained under in County Down, Northern Ireland, the tower marks the site against which the men of Ulster advanced on 1st July 1916. The northernmost 7km of the Somme Battlefield can be seen from here.

Undoubtedly one of the largest and best-preserved trench memorials on the Western Front. Just outside the park lies Hawthorn Crater, and within it are the ‘Danger Tree’ and remains of the British Front Line. The German Front Line can be seen across No Man’s Land. 

The Sunken Lane was a lane running in a north-south direction and situated in No Mans Land, halfway between the opposing front lines west of Beaumont Hamel village until the battle moved beyond the village in November 1916. 

Serre was a strongly fortified village held by the Germans at the beginning of the Battle of the Somme. The village marked the most northern point of the main attack on the 1st of July 1916.

Cemetery No. 2 has a total of 7,127 British and Commonwealth burials. Of these only 2,183 are identified. The cemetery was started in May 1917 when soldiers' remains were cleared after the territory around the cemetery came into British hands. Hundreds of soldiers had been killed in the vicinity of this cemetery in the British offensive of 1st July 1916 and it had not been possible to retrieve their bodies for almost a whole year.

Sheffield Memorial Park is preserved as a memorial to the Pals Battalions who fought west of Serre village in the Battle of the Somme 1916. 

The name of this small village, and of the nearby wood, is actually Ploegsteert, but to those who served here during WWI, it became known as ‘Plugstreet’. There were no major battles here and Ploegsteert remained in British possession during the major part of the war. However, there are cemeteries and other sites of interest on all sides of, as well as within the wood, including a plaque commemorating Winston Churchill. 

Hill 60 was heavily shelled and mined during WWI. The ground forming Hill 60 remains the final resting place for countless soldiers buried somewhere beneath its grassy foundations.

The hill proved to be an invaluable vantage point from which to view the wider battlefield and so was much sought and fought after by the allied and German forces.

St George's Memorial Church was built in commemoration of British and Commonwealth troops who lost their lives during WWI. The church is now a destination for many thousands of pilgrims who visit the battlefields of Flanders since the war ended in 1918.

This quiet village was of great importance during WWI.  As the war dragged on, desertion, cowardice and crime increasingly became a problem. To combat the problem, commanders began executing deserters and mutinous troops. The British shot 320 men and the French as many as 700. The Germans, by contrast, shot about 50.

In one of two cells near the Poperinge monument, where soldiers were held before their execution at dawn, is now a place to remember not just the heroics of war but also its horrors.

Nearby, the College Stanislas was the HQ of The Friends Ambulance – about 1,000 Quakers served in this unit on the Western Front and here students will look at the dilemmas, both moral and practical, faced by conscientious objectors during WWI.

In 1915, this British soldiers’ club, known as ‘Toc H’, opened to all ranks. Today, Talbot House is a fascinating living museum depicting daily life in the club. Groups are also able to visit the recently renovated concert hall where many recreational activities and concerts took place. 

The story of the cemetery - the largest hospital cemetery in the Ypres Salient area with almost 11,000 victims, representing 30 nationalities - is told in this new visitor centre. The exhibition includes a photo and listening wall where stories from the war can be discovered.

This superb state-of-the-art, interactive museum is now an even richer experience with the updated larger museum. Covering most aspects of the war in Flanders, each visitor will receive a wristband that will take them on a journey in the museum through the eyes of someone who was there. Educational worksheets and study resources and workshops are available www.inflandersfields.be/en/educational-new