Zonnebeke Display Sign

Zonnebeke  - 500mm x 178mm print aplied steel sign

Situated in the centre of the Ypres Salient, the whole area of Zonnebeke was destroyed during World War 1 and left abandoned until the early 1920s when people slowly returned and rebuilt the villages. The name Zonnebeke probably rings very few bells in British ears, but almost everyone has heard of its neighbouring village: Passchendaele. The chateau of Zonnebeke now houses the impressive Passchendaele 1917 Memorial Museum. Not far away, cresting the ridge which separates the two villages, stands Tyne Cot Cemetery – the largest Commonwealth military cemetery in the world. It was here in 1917 that the British army fought for 4 long months in a desperate bid to break the German line. They advanced just 8 kilometres at a cost of almost 400,000 killed, wounded and missing. Little wonder that the village was known to the troops as ‘Passion Dale’ – the Valley of Suffering.