Wijnegem Communal Cemetery

Wijnegem Communal Cemetery sits on Turnhoutsebaan, just over 200 metres northeast of the town hall in this Belgian municipality in the province of Antwerp. The grounds form an irregular plot enclosed by a brick wall, giving the site a self-contained, quiet character set apart from the surrounding streets.

How did this cemetery come to be?

Wijnegem's burial history goes back to the old churchyard that once surrounded the Sint-Aldegondiskerk in the village centre. A Napoleonic decree of 1804 required municipalities to move burial grounds outside built-up areas for sanitary reasons, and as a result the old churchyard cemetery was closed in 1807. The new communal cemetery, in its present location, was only established in 1887, and it has served as the municipality's main burial ground ever since.

What can visitors see on site?

Directly opposite the main entrance stands a monument honouring Wijnegem residents who died in both world wars. It was designed by Floris de Cuijper and Arthur Smet and dates to 1921 — shortly after the end of the First World War, a period when many Belgian municipalities erected similar memorials to their fallen. To the left of the central path lies a section holding 166 graves of soldiers, deportees, and civilian victims from both world wars, making it one of the more substantial war memorial areas in the municipality.

The cemetery also connects to Commonwealth history: it contains one Commonwealth war grave from the Second World War, maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). While the number of such burials here is modest compared with the larger war cemeteries found elsewhere in Flanders, the presence of a CWGC-tended grave places Wijnegem within the wider network of war remembrance sites across Belgium.

Was anything older found nearby?

An interesting archaeological footnote to the idea of a "cemetery" in Wijnegem is that the municipality — at a different location than today's communal burial ground, near the so-called Blikstraat — was once the site of a much older funerary landscape. Archaeologists uncovered a cremation cemetery there with 29 cremation graves and 9 funerary monuments, its history beginning around the transition from the Early to the Middle Bronze Age, with the main period of use falling in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age. It shows that the area around present-day Wijnegem has been used for burials for thousands of years, even though this is physically a separate site from today's communal cemetery.

Frequently asked questions

Where exactly is the cemetery located? On Turnhoutsebaan, just over 200 metres northeast of Wijnegem's town hall.

Since when has the current cemetery been in use? Since 1887, after the old churchyard cemetery was closed in 1807 under an 1804 Napoleonic decree.

What does the monument at the entrance commemorate? Municipality residents who died in the First and Second World Wars; designed by Floris de Cuijper and Arthur Smet, it dates to 1921.

Are there any Commonwealth war graves here? Yes, one Second World War grave is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Is this the same place as the ancient cemetery found in Wijnegem? No — the archaeological cremation cemetery, thousands of years older, was located near Blikstraat, in a different part of the municipality from today's communal cemetery.