La Plus Douve Farm Cemetery

La Plus Douve Farm Cemetery. Authors image

In the valley of the River Douve, north of Ploegsteert Wood, were two farms, La Petite Douve was the object of a successful raid by the 7th Canadian Infantry Battalion in November 1915 and it is the location of one of the Messines mines discovered by the Germans in 1916. That mine still lies beneath the farm. The other, La Plus Douve, which was within the Allied lines, was used at times as a battalion headquarters. It was also known as Ration Farm because battalion transport could approach it at night with rations. The Ration Farm (La Plus Douve) Annexe Cemetery is nearby and was begun in January 1915 and used until January 1918.

Bruce Bairnsfather

The La Plus Douve Farm Cemetery was started by the 48th (South Midland) Division in April 1915, men of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment as they held the line here until June 1915, and was in use until May 1918, when it was used by the Germans who had captured the farm in April 1918. Lieutenant Bruce Bairnsfather an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, at the request of his Colonel, was billeted here and was asked to decorate the walls of the rooms with sketches. He was not the first to decorate the walls as he discovered three of four other sketches. On one wall of a room off the main room used for meals he drew a sketch entitled ‘My Dream for years to come’ this later featured in The Bystander and was to become one of his well-known Fragments from France. Another was ‘They’ve evidently seen me’ the idea for this sketch came from his time in the line at St Yves. It was published in The Bystander on 21 April 1915. 

Plum Duff Street

Ration Farm/La Plus Douve Farm could be reached from the camps behind Hill 63 via the communication trench known as Plum Duff Street. This is now the dirt road leading from the rebuilt La Plus Douve Farm of today up the hill to the road on what was Hill 63. It used to be tree lined however; the trees were cut down in 2022. The house at the top of the hill on the right before joining the road was shown on the trench maps as the ‘Control Post’. Turn left when joining the road and on your right was the position of Fort Eberle. From their positions at Ration Farm the British could look down the River Douve valley and watch over their front-line trenches and the destroyed farms with names such as Donnington Hall, Stinking Farm, Irish Farm, and in the German lines La Petite Douve Farm.

Linesman Map

Canon Frederick Scott

The Canadian graves are men from the 1st Canadian Division who were in this sector from August 1915 following their action in Second Ypres at St Julien and in holding the Salient following the German gas attack of April 1915. The Canadian dead are from Battalions such as the 13th Battalion Royal Highlanders of Canada, 10th Battalion, Cavalry Brigade, Royal Montreal Regiment, and the 14th, 15th and 16th Battalions. The Canadians were billeted in the farms behind Hill 63. Farms such as Courte Dreve, the Piggeries, and La Grande Munque. Writing in his book ‘The Great War As I Saw It’ Canon Frederick Scott, Senior Chaplain to the Canadian 1st Division, recalled his time in the sector. ‘One day a German aeroplane was brought down behind our lines, near Ration Farm. Of its two occupants one was killed. On the aeroplane was found a Colt machine-gun, which had been taken by the Germans from the 14^th Battalion several months before, in the Second Battle of Ypres. It now came back to the brigade which had lost it. I buried the airman near Ration Farm, in a grave, which the men did up neatly and over which they erected a cross with his name upon it.’ He recalled a visit to the front lines: ‘…. I then went up over the hill (Hill 63) down to Ration Farm, and from thence into the line. I was returning about 10 o’clock, when the second in command of the 16th Battalion asked me to wait for him…. It must have been about midnight when I started with the Major, and another officer. The night was dark and it was rather a scramble, but the German flare lights would go up now and then and show us our course. Suddenly a machine gun opened up, and we had to lie on our faces listening to the swish of the flying bullets just overhead. I turned to the officer next to me and asked him how long he had been at the front. He said he had arrived that afternoon at four o’clock… We finally made our way to Ration Farm…’ At the farm he went into a cellar to collect a tin of bully beef and he started to walk up the long straight road (marked on trench maps as Plum Duff Street), the road is still in use today as access to the farm, to go back over Hill 63 to his billet.

The New Zealand dead are from the Battle of Messines in June 1917. The New Zealand 1st Field Ambulance had a Regimental Aid Post here. The Australian dead are mostly all from early 1918 when they held this sector leading up to the German offensive in April 1918.

The cemetery was designed by Charles Holden.

Cemetery Location

La Plus Douve Farm Cemetery is located 10.5 Kms south of Ieper town centre, on a road leading from the Rijselseweg N365, which connects Ieper to Wijtschate and on to Armentieres. From Ieper town centre the Rijselsestraat runs from the market square, through the Lille Gate (Rijselpoort) and directly over the crossroads with the Ieper ring road. The road name then changes to the Rijselseweg. The first right hand turning in the village of Messines leads onto the Mesenstraat. 2 Kms along the Mesenstraat on the left-hand side lies the street Plus Douve. The cemetery is located 500 metres along the Plus Douve on the right-hand side of the track.

Burials

It contains 336 Commonwealth burials of the First World War.

UK – 101

Australian – 86

Canadian - 88

New Zealand – 61

German – 9