In 1992 a group of amateur archeologists named “The Diggers” first discovered the remains of an original British trench. Between 1998 and 2000 they spent many hours digging and examining the trench, which also had tunnelled dugouts. At the time major construction work for new buildings in Ypres’ northern industrial zone was also being carried out.

In addition to many artefacts “The Diggers” discovered the remains of 155 First World War soldiers. The casualties they discovered were British, French and German, lost in battle and never recovered for seventy years.

The project to unearth the trench section featured in a BBC television documentary called “The Forgotten Battlefield”. The soldiers’ remains and items found during the dig were passed over to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), the German war graves commission (the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge) and the French Embassy. The museums of In Flanders Fields in Ieper and the Hooghe museum on the Menin Road received some of the artefacts for their archive collections. The remains of the 155 casualties were reburied with full military honours in military cemeteries.

Many of the British casualties discovered here were from an action by the British launched against the German positions on 6 July 1915. The British units involved in the action were in the 11th Brigade of the British 4th Division. The losses to British and German troops were about 600 in total.

Source: The Great War

See also a recent article in The Yorkshire Post