Poperinge Old Military Cemetery

The 'Poperinghe Old Military Cemetry' came into being in October 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres. Commonwealth dead were buried there until early May 1915. After a typhoid epidemic broke out among the population in the winter of 1914 and the House of Our Lady could no longer cope with the influx, a civil hospital was set up in the castle of justice of the peace D'Hondt in Deken de Bolaan, on the initiative of the "Friends Ambulance Unit", a British civic voluntary organisation. The 'Hôpital Château', headed by British doctor Rees, took in sick residents and refugees from January 1915, but soon many British wounded were also admitted to the castle. Those who lost their lives in D'Hondt castle, both civilians and British soldiers, were buried in the 'Poperinghe Old Military Cemetery' which was previously Hilaire Deraedt's garden. The cemetery is freely accessible from sunrise to sunset.