Hospital Farm Cemetery

Continuing along this road leads to a cross-roads - known in the war as Dirty Bucket Corner. Turning right here leads to Hospital Farm Cemetery, located on the right hand side of the road. There is a parking area by a gate and a track flanked by tall trees leads from this to to the cemetery which is set some distance back from the road. Farm buildings stand just to the right of this track as they did before the Great War, and this was Hospital Farm, but the temporary war-time buildings of Hospital Farm Camp were actually located on the other side of the road. At the end of the track another gate leads to a small bridge which crosses water to the cemetery gate itself. This ditch, which by the cemetery is water-filled, can be seen running alongside the track back to the road, and this 'moat' was marked on trench maps. This is a fairly small cemetery, surrounded by pollarded trees cut quite short. It contains 116 burials, only three of which are unknown. Its name came from a building at the farm which was used as a dressing station , and the cemetery itself was used mainly in 1915 and 1917. By 1918 a light railway ran right next to the cemetery. There is one French civilian buried here who was killed nearby - Marcel Top. His gravestone differs from the others: it has a square top with the corners nicked, and is inscribed wth just his name, the date he died (11th August 1915) and a cross. Among the graves here is that of Lieutenant Lambert Playfair who was serving with the 1st Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps when he was killed in action at St. Julien on the 6th of July 1915. He was aged just 21, and was the son of Jessie and Harry Playfair of Assam in India. He gained a prize cadetship to Sandhurst in 1912 and was gazetted to the 1st Royal Scots in January 1913. Also buried here is Private John Ashton from Pontefract who arrived on the Western Front with the 5th Battalion of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry on the 29th of June 1915. He died of wounds recieved at Vlamertinghe on Boxing Day 1915, aged 35.

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