The huge Lijssenthoek military cemetery on a quiet road in West Flanders contains almost 11,000 graves of soldiers from 30 different countries who died in World War One. It stands in the fields near Poperinge where several hospitals were located during the First World War.
As you enter the cemetery, you pass a line of 1,392 posts. Each one represents a day in the four-year war, and records the number who died in the hospital on that day.
A visitor pavilion was added in 2012 by the architect Luc Vandewynckel in the style of the original wooden hospital huts. It contains an exhibition on the doctors and nurses who worked here. A different video is shown each day, dedicated to one of the men who died on that day.
Derek Blyth’s hidden secret of the day: Derek Blyth is the author of the bestselling “The 500 Hidden Secrets of Belgium”. He picks out one of his favourite hidden secrets for The Brussels Times every day.
