Their Name Liveth for Evermore

My Dad's 65th birthday today and he chose to celebrate by taking the boys and I to Belgium to indulge Mini Mills passion for history.

First stop was Hill 62 Sanctuary Wood, a World War 1 museum and the only preserved original trenches.

From the museum, you walk outside into the wood itself. The trench system at Sanctuary Wood is actually quite extensive, and includes sections which run underground, or at least beneath the cover of "elephant-iron" corrugated roof sections.

The wood was given it's name because early in the War, some soldiers sheltered here, in effect were offered sanctuary, from a battle as they tried to return to their units. Following shelling in November 1914, the name could hardly be considered appropriate, but it stuck.

The remains of an original shell-blasted tree stand in Sanctuary Wood, and this is a popular place for visitors to leave poppies. The area around the trenches is still pocked with shellholes, and the area remains one of the few sites where you can get something of an impression of the actual terrain and landscape during the Great War.

A profoundly moving experience for me.