CWGC Cemetery: TALANA FARM CEMETERY

Visiting Information

Wheelchair access possible via main entrance. For further information regarding wheelchair access, please contact our Enquiries Department on telephone number: 01628 634221

Local Information

From Ieper the Cemetery is located on the Diksmuidseweg road (N369) in the direction of Boezinge. From the station in Ieper turn left into M.Fochlaan and go to the roundabout, turn right and go to the next roundabout. Here turn left and drive to the next roundabout. Turn right into Oude Veurnestraat. Take the second turning on the left, which is the Diksmuidseweg, and carry on under the motorway bridge. The cemetery will be found a further 600 meters on the left hand side of the road. N.B. Talana Farm Cemetery is the second cemetery on the left, the first being Bard Cottage Cemetery.

Historical Information

Talana Farm was one of a group of farm houses named by the army from episodes of the South African war. The cemetery was begun by French troops in April 1915, taken over by the 1st Rifle Brigade and 1st Somerset Light Infantry in June 1915, and was used by fighting units until March 1918. Buried in Plot II, Rows E and F are a number of men of the 1st East Lancashire Regiment who died in a small but successful attack on 6 July 1915. Plots III and IV contain many 49th (West Riding) Division graves and also those of the artillery units that took over the ground in August 1917. There are now 529 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in the cemetery. 14 of the burials are unidentified and there are special memorials to six casualties whose graves in the cemetery could not be located. It is probable that the cemetery contained other graves later destroyed by shell fire. The cemetery was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield.