Aroundtown Magazine Nov/Dec 2023 edition

FAMILY
You helped save the
Yorkshire Trench!
You may recall that back
in the summer of 2021
we covered the story of
the Yorkshire Trench,
one of a very few WWI
trenches that still exist
in its original location.
Over 100 years after it was built,
it had started to disintegrate due to
changing water levels around the
site in Ypres, Belgium. Retired army
reservist, John Morrison, from Leeds,
had started a crowdfunding appeal
to raise money to save this window
to the war.
Alas, an entrance to one of
the Yorkshire Trench’s dugouts
collapsed earlier this year, limiting
visitor access to the site.
However, thanks largely to
donations that Yorkshire people
made to John’s appeal, the entrance
was restored and the trench
reopened to visitors in September.
The 70-metre-long Yorkshire
Trench is a unique historical and
archaeological site. It was built by the
French in 1915 but maintained by the
49th West Riding Infantry Division,
mainly soldiers from Sheffield and
West Yorkshire, which is why it
adopted the name Yorkshire Trench.
The 49th occupied the trench
until the end of the First World War
in 1918. After that, it was lost for
many years under a sea of brambles.
That was until development of
an industrial estate on the site in
1992. It was excavated where an
underground shelter, passages and
chambers were discovered.
Then in 1998, further investigations
took place where the bodies of
around 200 soldiers were found.
Only one of those could be identified,
a French soldier whose metal dog
tag hadn’t disintegrated.
After deciphering this was indeed
the site of the former British front line,
the trench was recreated by the In
Flanders Field Museum at the turn
of the millennium. Volunteers rebuilt
the trench as the soldiers would have
done almost 100 years before using
sandbags and duckboards.
Ever since, the site has been
one of fascinating military interest
to visitors from across the world.
However, standing water was a
real problem in the war and still is
today, which is what caused the
trench to disintegrate.
It wasn’t eligible for UK grants,
so crowdfunding was the only way
to save it. John raised over £17,000
in his crowdfunding appeal which
he gave to the In Flanders Field
Museum to rebuild the crumbling
dugout entrance. Further donations
and grants in Belgium added
another €40,000 to the pot.
The stairwells have been renewed
to improve accessibility, and there
is now better lighting to the dugout
so visitors can see inside it. Above
ground, there are gravel paths which
mark the layout of the underground
passages and chambers in
the trench. There are also new
information panels around the site
detailing further historical facts.
John said: “When I mention the
First World War and the Yorkshire
Trench, the first thing most people
say is, ‘my uncle, my grandad, my
great grandad was wounded, or
killed, or an unknown in Ypres.’ It’s
a place in our collective memory.
For those people, donating gave
them a forum to remember a family
member lost to the war. For me,
it’s a reminder of the price that
freedom costs.
“After listening to people and
their stories and reading so many
individual accounts and diaries, I
realised that there was only one
salient where so much misery,
murder and mud was compressed
into so small a place – and that
was Ypres.”
The works have ensured the
careful preservation of a WWI
relic, while also helping the region
to continue telling the historically
accurate story of one the Western
Front’s most notorious war zones.
But these measures have only
touched the surface. There weren’t
enough funds to fully restore the
trench’s crumbling sandbags.
The estimated budget is €100,000
so the long-term plan is to keep
crowdfunding.
You can donate to the cause
at www.justgiving.com/
crowdfunding/yorkshiretrench
54 aroundtownmagazine.co.uk