Point du Jour Cemetery, Arras/Athies

[Graham-McAdam]

Has anyone been to this cemetery recently? I had no trouble getting in soon after the group of Grimsby Chums (perhaps) were buried. Since then I have twice tried to get to it from the N50 from Arras to Douai. Last year there were substantial road works and everything was barriered off into one lane, and with so much heavy traffic on the road it was impossible to slow down and wind into the car park.

I tried again a couple of weeks ago and found that the approach to the cemetery has motorway barriers coming out from the verge at both west and east ends. These then turn into concrete bollards. I guess that if one was driving dead slow one might get through between two of these bollards, but, again, on such a busy road this is not an option. The car park on the turn off to Athies is, I suppose, about a half mile walk. My wife is arthritic, so this was not an option.

I see from the map that there is a road from Athies to the west side of the cemetery (the opposite side from the car park) though I have never seen this when driving past. Is that, in fact, the way to access the cemetery? The CWGC website does not seem to recognise there is now a seriously difficult problem of access here.

[Graham-McAdam]

Just in case any of you are planning a visit to Point du Jour (a big important cemetery where the score of men who were found near here a couple of years ago ( 4thLincs - arms linked, etc) are buried, I've just had a note from CWGC in Arras describing the latest on access, which presumably means that the biggish car park east of the cemetery will now be abandoned:

"The situation is that a road widening scheme has now made it impossible to gain access to the cemetery from the N 50 (Arras, direction Douai). Indeed, the new recommended access to the cemetery is as follows : "leave St Laurent Blangy on the D42 (Athies to Biache St Vaast) and drive into the village of Athies-Les-Arras. After 500 m take a left turn onto the Rue du Chauffour. Continue for 1.2 km down a small track and the cemetery will be seen on the right."