V-Bret. Renovations.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has recently announced a major, three-year horticultural renovation project at Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery in France.

Photo: View from the top of the Australian National Memorial, Villers-Bretonneux. [Chris Munro]

The announcement was made on the Commissions website: www.cwgc.org.  
……….Commencing at the end of November 2008, the work has become necessary because a large proportion of the existing Hornbeam tree belt have deteriorated with age and are impacting upon the fabric of the cemetery.

The Commission’s Director of Horticulture, John Tooke MBE said, “Undertaking the work now will ensure there is minimum disruption for visitors and sufficient time for the new avenue of trees to establish before major commemorative events in 2018. The work will be carried out in three phases and will be complete by 2010.

The project’s aim is to reinstate the original design principle of the cemetery – rows of healthy, conically shaped trees the length of the cemetery, thereby allowing a framed view of the memorial and cemetery entrance. This vital work will also ensure that those buried and remembered at the cemetery and memorial are commemorated in a manner befitting their sacrifice.”

For further information please contact Peter Francis on 01628 507163

Photo: Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery. [Chris Munro]

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The Families and Friends of the First AIF thanks the Australian, UK and French governments for affording Australian and British soldiers – presently buried in mass graves at Pheasant Wood – dignified individual reburials in a new CWGC cemetery at Fromelles, and applauds Minister Snowdon and his British counterpart, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence and Minister for Veterans, Kevan Jones MP, for their joint decision to DNA test the remains at exhumation and use every reasonable method to attempt identification of each soldier.