Menin Gate

Ypres (now Ieper) is a town in the Province of West Flanders in Belgium which was totally destroyed in the First World War and has been rebuilt. The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing is situated at the eastern side of the town on the road to Menin.

The site of the Menin Gate was chosen because of the hundreds of thousands of men who passed through it on their way to the First World War battlefields. It now bears the names of more than 54,000 officers and men whose graves are not known. The memorial, designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield with sculpture by Sir William Reid-Dick, was unveiled by Lord Plumer in July 1927.

Each night at 8 pm the traffic is stopped at the Menin Gate while members of the local Fire Brigade sound the Last Post in the roadway under the Memorial's arches.