Ypres & The Somme History School Trips & Tours - WWI Battlefields

This superb state-of-the-art, interactive museum is now an even richer experience with the updated larger museum. Covering most aspects of the war in Flanders, each visitor will receive a wristband that will take them on a journey in the museum through the eyes of someone who was there. Educational worksheets and study resources and workshops are available www.inflandersfields.be/en/educational-new

On Ypres school trips, students can visit this fascinating site near the original front lines, featuring well-preserved British trenches, covered passageways, and a section of the underground tunnel system. The museum consists of two rooms housing many artefacts removed from the battlefields plus a large and rare collection of three dimensional photo images inside special viewing boxes.

Commemorating the 1917 Battle of Passchendale, this museum has been enlarged, with a new underground exhibition focusing on the battle, a network of open air trenches and a new remembrance gallery. A full day interactive platoon experience also available, please call for details.

Students can explore the Museum Hooge Crater, offering a unique tour with original artefacts and full-scale reconstructions of battlefield scenes. A visit to the trenches showcases a German and British trench in their exact original position, as they were between April and July 1915.

The museum also boasts an extensive collection of weapons from 1914-18, along with war equipment from all the armies involved in the intense battles of those years. Photos and other historical displays make this museum a true must-see for anyone studying World War I.

The remains of two of the mines blown up at the beginning of the Battle of Messines lie here. The preserved battlefield around the Hill 60 crater bears witness to the ferocity of the fighting around this vantage point, which changed hands on several occasions.

The largest and the most important of the British memorials to the Missing in The Salient, The Menin Gate holds the names of 54,896 soldiers of the British Empire. This memorial marked the start of one of the main roads out of Ypres towards the Front Line. Following a meal at a local restaurant, your students will witness the moving ‘Last Post Ceremony’ which takes place every evening at 8pm.

A sombre, foreboding place; this cemetery contains the bodies of more than 40,000 German troops, over half of which lie in a mass grave. Here, your students will learn how Germany chose to remember its war dead and how their thoughts of war were shaped by the slaughter of the German pupil battalions by British regular troops in 1914, known as the Massacre of the Innocents, an important challenge to pre-war ideas of the glories of warfare. The entrance to the exhibition contains a memorial room dedicated specificallyto the dead of the Student Battalions. In the 1930s, the memory of this battle was incorporated into Hitler’s perverse Cult of the Dead. 

Tyne Cot Cemetery is the resting place of 11,956 soldiers, and the largest British Military Cemetery in the world. The panels in the rear wall hold the names of 34,888 missing soldiers.

In 1915, this British soldiers’ club, known as ‘Toc H’, opened to all ranks. Today, Talbot House is a fascinating living museum depicting daily life in the club. Groups are also able to visit the recently renovated concert hall where many recreational activities and concerts took place. 

German troops occupied this strategic position from late 1914. The site consists of a preserved German trench system, within which are several large concrete emplacements and two mineshafts. Information panels explain life at the Front.

Spanbroekmolen Crater, created by the largest mine explosion on June 7, 1917, at the start of the Battle of Messines in Flanders, is a key site on Ypres school trips. The crater serves as a powerful reminder of the destruction caused by the war and its impact on the landscape.

The story of the cemetery - the largest hospital cemetery in the Ypres Salient area with almost 11,000 victims, representing 30 nationalities - is told in this new visitor centre. The exhibition includes a photo and listening wall where stories from the war can be discovered.

Ideal for groups studying Edexcel’s Medicine and Surgery on the Western Front option, this guided tour follows the medical evacuation route of the 2nd Battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment after their involvement in a gas attack on 5th May 1915.  

You will stop at places where their presence in the landscape is still visible. Not every casualty followed this route to its end. Some were patched up and sent back into battle. Some were beyond all medical help and ended their journey before they reached the hospitals behind the lines.

This excursion includes:

• Divisional Cemetery
• Hill 60, an authentic wartime landscape
• Larch Wood Cemetery
• The village of Dikkebus
• Reninghelst Churchyard Extension Cemetery
• Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery

Drawing on the incredible Australian archive collection, the story of Australia’s involvement on the Western Front battlefields during World War One is told directly from the personal diaries, letters and service records of the men and women who were there. This amazing insight into the events that helped shape a nation is delivered through a highly intuitive, interactive system that combines the latest in large scale interactive touch screens and tables with a specially designed ‘app’.

At the heart of the Centre lies a 360 degree theatre that puts the visitor right into the battles of Villers-Bretonneux and Hamel—to experience the Western Front as never before.

This is the largest memorial to the British missing on the Western Front, containing the names of over 73,000 men who died in the Somme section before 20th March 1918 and have no known graves. The visitor centre houses an informative exhibition designed to aid understanding of the history of Thiepval during WWI.

Undoubtedly one of the largest and best-preserved trench memorials on the Western Front. Just outside the park lies Hawthorn Crater, and within it are the ‘Danger Tree’ and remains of the British Front Line. The German Front Line can be seen across No Man’s Land. 

The largest surviving crater on the Western Front, created by a mine explosion on 1st July 1916, is one of the most impressive sites on the Somme Battlefields. School trips to the Somme offer students the chance to visit this remarkable location, providing a powerful insight into the scale of the battles fought during World War I and the strategies employed.

The main British base town during the 1916 battle, Albert changed hands on several occasions. The damaged tower of its basilica, ‘the leaning virgin’, was a famous site on this part of the Front. Next to this is the entrance to a small WWI museum housed in a series of underground chambers.

On Somme school trips, students can visit Delville Wood, South Africa’s major memorial to its fallen soldiers of WWI. Known as ‘Devil’s Wood’ by the troops, the site is a significant place of remembrance. After the war, the wood was replanted, but only one tree survives from the original woodland.

Standing by the Albert-Bapaume road, this monument marks the spot from which the first tank attack in history began in September 1916.

Built as a memorial copy of the tower that the 36th Ulster Division had trained under in County Down, Northern Ireland, the tower marks the site against which the men of Ulster advanced on 1st July 1916. The northernmost 7km of the Somme Battlefield can be seen from here.

Constructed of Accrington brick, this striking and relatively recent memorial commemorates one of the best known of the Pals Battalions. It stands in a park dedicated to The Sheffield City Battalion which contains traces of the front line trenches, from which both battalions attacked on 1st July 1916.

This fascinating museum has been created within a section of tunnels dug by the British Army during WWI. It gives groups on Somme school trips the opportunity to visit the underground network which played a key part in the Battle of Arras. Your students will descend 20 metres in a glass lift to take a guided tour. A great alternative to Vimy Ridge which can get booked up very early.

Visit the site of fierce fighting in 1917, when the Canadians successfully took the ridge from the Germans. Students can explore the tunnels, trenches, and cemeteries, gaining a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by soldiers during this pivotal battle on school trips to the Somme. 

Further develop your students’ understanding of the events of WWI, and allow them to look at the war from the perspective of the French forces, by extending your trip with a day or more in Verdun. Call our dedicated History tours team to discuss further.

Dedicated to the battles of the Somme and the Missing, this new museum has been built into the Thiepval Visitor Centre. The exhibition studies the history of the many battles of the Somme, paying particular attention to the most deadly battle of all - the Battle of the Somme 1916. This permanent exhibition displays artefacts, archaeological finds, multimedia displays and life-size installations and a 60 metre long mural which opens an imaginary window onto the 1st July battlefield.