Hyde Park Corner (Royal Berks) Cemetery
Small CWGC cemetery in Ploegsteert, Belgium, for First World War dead.
Hyde Park Corner (Royal Berks) Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground in Belgium for the dead of the First World War. It is located in the village of Ploegsteert within the Ypres Salient on the Western Front. This small cemetery is not to be confused with the larger Berks Cemetery Extension, which stands directly opposite across the road.
Quick Facts
- Use dates
- April 1915 – November 1917
- Established
- 1915
- Designer
- H Chalton Bradshaw
- Nearest town
- Ploegsteert
- Hainaut
- Belgium
- Total
- 87
- By country
- Allied Powers:
- United Kingdom: 81
- Canada: 1
- Australia: 1
- Central Powers:
- Germany: 4
- By war
- World War I: 87
Facts from the source article.
History
The cemetery was originally established by troops of the 1st and 4th Royal Berkshire Regiment in April 1915. It later expanded across the road, where the Berks Cemetery Extension was built, which now also houses the Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing. King Albert I of Belgium assigned the grounds to the United Kingdom in perpetuity. H. Chalton Bradshaw designed the cemetery's current appearance.
Notable graves
The cemetery contains 87 soldiers' graves, including those of both Allied and Central Powers. Among the burials is Ronald Poulton-Palmer, a rugby union footballer who captained in the 1913–1914 season and was killed by a sniper in May 1915 while serving as a lieutenant in the Royal Berkshire Regiment. Also buried is Albert French, a 16-year-old soldier from Wolverton, Buckinghamshire, whose letters contributed to Ploegsteert becoming a sister city of Wolverton in 2006. Samuel McBride of the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Rifles, executed for desertion on 7 December 1916, is interred here; it is now felt by many that these 'shot at dawn' men may have been suffering from combat stress reaction.
More in Funerary and Memory Sites of the First World War
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