Today, Thursday 3 October, Flemish Minister-President Kris Peeters has officially launched the first project within the framework of the Memorial Gardens 2014-2018 in Ypres. The Flanders Fields Memorial Garden is a partnership between the Flemish Representation in London and The Guards Museum.

With the memorial gardens the Government of Flanders seeks to honour those who fought and died during the First World War and commemorate them in a suitable manner. The memorial gardens are to serve as a lasting witness to hope, peace, reconciliation and international unity.

"The historical bonds between Great Britain and Belgium, in particular the battlefields and cemeteries in Flanders, are unique and very close. That is why I consider it important that our first memorial garden is created in London”, says Minister-President Peeters.

The garden will be located alongside The Guards Chapel at Wellington Barracks, adjacent to Buckingham Palace. The Flanders Fields Memorial Garden will thus be at the heart of royal and military London, which is visited daily by thousands of people from all over the world and takes centre stage during each national British ceremony.

The idea for the garden was conceived by the Curator of the Guards Museum, Andrew Wallis, Government of Flanders Representative Nic Van der Marliere, and internationally-acclaimed landscape architect Piet Blanckaert who designed the garden. Mr Blanckaert is now monitoring the works which are at an advanced stage.

What is unique about this garden is that the soil used for its creation has great symbolic value. The British soil in London will be mixed with soil from Flanders Fields. In an extraordinary project, called "The Gathering of the Soil", 70 schools from Flanders and a number of Walloon schools "adopted" 70 cemeteries from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. They also contacted 70 British schools to jointly set up educational projects during the next four years in the context of peace education and to stress the importance of commemorating the victims of the First World
War, despite the fact that it took place 100 years ago. The British and Belgian pupils will write relevant texts which will then be incorporated into the garden and entered in a golden book that will be kept at the Guards Museum. "The Gathering of the Soil" thus brings together pupils, schools and parents from both sides of the Channel across networks and communities. It connects past and future, young people and soldiers, in the collective memory of the human suffering and the sacrifices of an entire generation.

In September 2013, the pupils dug up soil from the battlefields and took a symbolic shovel of earth from the plots of the 70 cemeteries, in cooperation with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and under their professional guidance.

“In this context I sincerely wish to thank, on behalf of the Government of Flanders, the educational umbrella organisations, the pupils, the school management teams, the teachers, and above all the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and pay tribute to their unflagging commitment to this wonderful project”, says Minister-President Peeters.

The soil was placed in a small sandbag which had the name of the cemetery printed on it. Today, all the sandbags were collected at Ypres Cloth Hall where they will be ceremonially displayed and can be viewed by the public until 10 November. For the first time in history, soil from the battlefields and from the cemeteries of Flanders Fields are brought together. In this way the fallen British soldiers are symbolically re-united after one hundred years.

Some pictures:















































































Click here for more information on the project.