Essex Farm Cemetery is located on the banks of the Ypres-Yser canal by the site of the Advanced Dressing Station where Lt Col John McCrae was serving as a medical officer when he wrote his famous poem “In Flanders Fields.” I have blogged about him previously in connection with the McCrae Memorial at Eilean Donan Castle in Lochalsh, Scotland.

The cemetery contains more than 1,000 graves. Unusually for a Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery its Cross of Sacrifice is located right at the entrance:-

Graves from northwest:-

From southeast. Note Yorkshire Memorial on the canal bank:-

From northeast:-

From south. Again note Yorkshire Memorial (which I shall come back to):-

Graves from Yorkshire Memorial:-

Graves from north, Yorkshire Memorial to left:-

A tree trunk has grown round the gravestone of Private J MacPherson, Seaforth Highlanders, who died on 5/7/1917, aged 33:-

Symbolic of the fact they fought and died over the same ground the cemetery holds a German grave, Franz Heger, RIR, 238, 7/8/1916:-

Grave of Rifleman V J Strudwick, The Rifle Brigade, 14/1/1916, aged 15, said to be the youngest British Empire casualty of the Great War. (There may be some doubt about this.) It is nevertheless a focus for remembrance:-

John McCrae Commemoration stone. Written in four languages, French, Flemish, English and German, with the poem itself also inscribed on the memorial along with a facsimile of the handwritten manuscript:-

The bunkers at Essex Farm Cemetery where John McCrae worked as a medic:-

Bunker interior:-

Another bunker interior:-

Bunkers, looking back up to Essex Farm Cemetery grounds:-

Information board with a photograph of how the bunkers appeared during the war:-

Lest We Forget:-

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

As I said in my posts about it Eilean Donan Castle is situated very near to the village of Dornie in Wester Ross.

Below is a photo of Dornie from the castle. The bridge goes over the entrance to Loch Long and cuts a fair few miles off the trip to Kyle of Lochalsh:-

Dornie from the bridge over Loch Long:-

Part of Loch Alsh and hills from Eilean Donan Castle. Dornie is to right here. You can just see where the water was disturbed at the junction of Loch Long and Loch Alsh:-

Loch Alsh from Eilean Donan Castle, looking seawards, Isle of Skye in middle distance:-

Loch Duich from Eilean Donan Castle looking inland. Dornie is behind and slightly to the left of the viewer here, Loch Alsh off to right:-

Despite the fact we visited the castle just after it opened in the morning the place was mobbed. It must be one of the most visited places in Scotland outside Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The castle may look old but was in fact a ruin and only restored in the 1920s. There isn’t really anything original to the castle inside but tehre is furniture etc from the relevant periods.

Northern bastion leading towards entrance (which can just be glimpsed round the side):-

Entrance:-

Building from courtyard:-

Round Tower:-

Tower block from lochside:-

Another tower block (from south):-

Tower block and range:-

A wooden platform:-

This post’s title alludes to the one I made on Burns’s cottage.

This is the iconic Scottish Castle, Eilean Donan, by the village of Dornie in the Highlands at the junction of Lochs Duish, Alsh and Long. We visited it in the summer of 2016.

Closer View:-

Reverse view showing bridge to castle:-

Bridge to castle from the island:-

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The above poem “In Flanders Fields” was composed by Lt Col John McCrae (who served in the Canadian army in the Second Boer War and again in the Great War as a medic) at Essex Farm Advanced Dressing Station.

A Memorial to all the Macraes who died in World War 1 is located on the outside wall of Eilean Donan Castle, Lochalsh, Scotland:-

Names on Macrae Memorial, Eilean Donan Castle, in various spellings of Macrae. These also appear on a (sc)Roll of Honour inside the castle:-

Plaque in memory of Lt Col John McCrae on outside wall of Eilean Donan Castle, Lochalsh, by the Macrae Memorial:-