Berks Cemetery Extension

GPS Coordinates: 50.738085, 2.882115
Location: Comines-Warneton, Hainaut
Record count: 876

Ownership: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Directions: Rue de Messines (N365), 7782 Comines-Warneton, Belgium.

The cemetery is on the west side of the N365 opposite Hyde Park Corner Cemetery. The Ploegsteert Memorial stands within the extension.

Background: Berks Cemetery Extension is a WWI cemetery established in June 1916 as an extension of Hyde Park Corner Cemetery, located across the road.

Hyde Park Corner is a WWI cemetery begun in April 1915 by the UK 1st/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment and was used at intervals until November 1917. It contains 83 UK military burials of the First World War and four German war graves.

Berks Cemetery Extension was used continuously until September 1917. After the end of WWI, the extension comprised of Plot I only, but Plots II and III were added in 1930 when graves were brought in from Rosenberg Chateau Military Cemetery and Extension, about 1 kilometre to the north-west. Both Berks Cemetery Extension and Hyde Park Corner Cemetery are often referred to collectively as "Red Lodge".

Within Berks Cemetery Extension stands the Ploegsteert Memorial, commemorating more than 11,000 Commonwealth servicemen who died in this sector during the First World War and have no known grave.

Before the cemetery was established, Hyde Park Corner was a road junction to the north of Ploegsteert Wood. Hill 63 was to the north-west and nearby were the 'Catacombs', deep shelters capable of holding two battalions, which were used from November 1916 onwards.

Burial Records

• CWGC Burial Records, by Interment.net, April 13, 2017, (876 records)

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