CWGC Cemetery: LE GRAND HASARD MILITARY CEMETERY, MORBECQUE

Visiting Information

Wheelchair access to site possible - maybe by alternative entrance. For further information regarding wheelchair access, please contact our enquiries dept. on 01628 634221.

Local Information

Morebecque is a small village in the Department of the Nord, 3 kilometres south-west of Hazebrouck. Leave the church in Morebecque and head north on the D916 towards Hazebrouck. After approximately 1 kilometre there is a Plant Nursery on the left hand side. Take the small road which goes through the nursery and the cemetery will be found on the right hand side in amongst farm land.

Historical Information

Le Grand Hasard Military Cemetery, begun by the 31st Division at the end of June 1918, was also used by the 40th Division. On its closure at the end of August the cemetery comprised Plots I and II, but after the Armistice Plots III and IV were added when scattered graves were brought into the cemetery from a wide area around Hazebrouck. The earliest of these graves dates from May 1915, but the majority were from the fighting of April 1918. There are now 300 Commonwealth burials of the First World War in the cemetery. Two further plots of 138 burials were added to the cemetery during the Second World War. Among these later burials, all dating from May and June 1940, are special memorials to a number of casualties known to be buried within the cemetery whose graves could not be precisely located. 58 of the graves are unidentified. The original cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker.