Divisional Collecting Post Cemetery and Extension

Divisional Collecting Post Cemetery and Extension is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) burial ground located just outside Ypres, Belgium, on ground that once formed part of the Western Front during the First World War. Its name reflects the site's original function as a collecting post, where the bodies of soldiers killed in the surrounding front-line sectors were gathered before burial.

How did the cemetery come about?

The cemetery was started by field ambulances of the 48th (South Midland) and 58th (London) Divisions in August 1917, during the Third Battle of Ypres, better known as Passchendaele. It was used to bury men who died of wounds at nearby dressing stations, as well as soldiers killed in the fighting close by. Burials continued until January 1918, and by the time of the Armistice in November 1918 the cemetery held 86 graves.

Why did the site grow so much larger after the war?

The cemetery's present size is largely the result of post-war work. Between 1924 and 1926, the Commission concentrated graves from smaller, scattered burial grounds and isolated battlefield graves found across the former Ypres battlefields into this site. This expansion is known as the "Extension," and today it forms a single, unified cemetery together with the original plot. For many years the cemetery and its extension were recorded as two separate sites for administrative purposes; their records were only merged into one in 2001.

Who is buried here?

The cemetery now contains 765 burials in total. The great majority are soldiers from the United Kingdom (581), alongside servicemen from Australia (102), Canada (75), New Zealand (5) and South Africa (1). There is also a single German burial, a reminder that the front line in this sector shifted back and forth repeatedly during the war, leaving behind casualties from more than one side.

Who designed the cemetery?

The layout of the cemetery and its extension was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield, one of the three principal architects appointed by the Imperial War Graves Commission (the forerunner of today's CWGC) to design war cemeteries across France and Belgium. Blomfield is also known as the designer of the Cross of Sacrifice, the stone cross found at the majority of CWGC cemeteries dating from the First World War.

Frequently asked questions

Where exactly is the cemetery located? It lies immediately outside Ypres, in the province of West Flanders, on ground that was part of the battlefield during the Third Battle of Ypres.

Is this one cemetery or two? Formally it consists of two combined burial grounds — the original cemetery and its post-war extension — which have been administered as a single site since 2001.

From which period do the burials date? Most of the original graves date from fighting between August 1917 and January 1918, while the extension resulted from the concentration of graves carried out between 1924 and 1926.

Can visitors access the site? Yes, like most CWGC cemeteries in the Ypres area, it is open to visitors throughout the year.