Sanctuary Wood Trench Museum

[David_Blanchard]

Interested to know what members feel about this museum.

Forgive if this topic has been hammered out before (I did check the posts beforehand)

[uncle bill]

I hate it. On the last two occasions I've had to fight to get the real price for admission. The only saving grace is the place's toilets which are the closest thing to front line latrines that you'll ever find. I hope the new trench at Boesinge ( spelling ?)gets more visitors.

[MartinWills]

Personally I have little enthusiam for the place, though it can be fun playing "guess the artifact".

Usually when I have been in the vicinity the "trenches" have looked splendidly muddy and down at heel. I wonder if this is actually nearer to the reality of the WW1 trench than we see elsewhere? If so it might give visiting schoolchildren and others an idea of how basic a trench might be.

That might be the saving grace of the place, perhaps?

Martin

[CROONAERT]

To be honest, I've always liked it here.It was one of the first places I visited as a child, so it may be more of a nostalgia thing, but I've always liked the "feel" of the place.

If anything,I think the stereoscopic views of the battlezones inside the museum make it all worthwhile.

Dave.

(saying this, I haven't been inside the museum itself for a couple of years now - I usually just stop off for a drink!)

[Hedley Malloch]

A subscriber to this Forum recently called Sanctuary Wood 'Disney Trenches' which seems to sum up the place.

I read Will Bird's 'Thirteen Years' over the summer. He went there in the early 30s; it is obvious from his description of the place that tarting-up was in full swing even then. The problem with kitsch like Disney Trenches is that it is so bad it is good.

[Fleur]

I have to say that, having taken freinds to the salient with us on a few occassions, we have taken them to Santuary just so that they can see a trench and the artifacts - duff as they are.

It has always sparked great conversations and enough interest that when we have returned to Blighty they have been inspired to go and get books or find websites about the area.

As long as you are aware that it is what it is then that's fine.

It serves a purpose - and sells beer

Fleur

[Guest Hill 60]

I've heard more bad than good about this place, but I will be visiting it this November.

Does anyone know how much it is to gain access?

How far into the Wood can you go?

The reason I'm interested is that one of my family was killed there in Feb 1916 and I just want to 'be there'.

[Fleur]

Lee, It's not expensive and it is quite good.

you can spend an hour or two in the museum bit looking at the sterograph photos (gruesome!) and the trenches are interesting - take a torch with you to explore under ground.

If you are lucky there won't be too many kids hooning around and making a racket.

The British army take their cadets out there which is interesting to see - I have been there a couple of times and seen how the place affects these kids.

you can't get in to the wood, all private land now.

you can go and hug a shot up tree in the trench area though.

I think that admission was about 6 euros when we were there in Feb - but I might be wrong, hubby paid, I wasn't paying too much attention

Sanctuary is much better than the museum up at Hooge, but pants when compared to the In Flanders Fields exhibition in the Cloth Hall in Wipers.

you'll have fun what ever and it does stand as a testament to the men who fought and fell there (IMHO)

Fleur

[Guest Hill 60]

Fleur - Thank you for the info

[Annette Burgoyne]

I have visited it once as a 11 years old, like Dave I may be looking at it from nostalgia but I liked it back then, 28 years ago, dam, just given my age away I loved the mud but did not like the smell of dug-outs (some one had used them as loos) so I did not go in them. I was just about to enter one when the smell made me retire at double time. The museum was great to a 11 year old its hard to say if I would feel the same if I visited now ?

Annette

[paul guthrie]

I think it's terrible and love the Hooge Museum, so you just have to see for yourself. When I led almost 50 US Branch WFA people to Ypres for nine days last April I did not include it on the itinerary. The stereo pictures are interesting though.

[Geoff Parker]

I've visited Sanctury Wood several times over the last few years. I found the indoor museum itself a pile of junk (literally), to see a good representation of uniforms, equipment, visit Hooge just down the road. With regard to the trenches at Sanctury Wood, I don't mind visiting them now and then, but knowing most were apparently dug in the 20's/30's and that are expanded on every so often takes the edge off it slightly.

I think overall there are far more interesting places to visit in the Salient and therefore Sanctury Wood would be low on my list. If fact a couple of years ago

I was on a locally run battlefield tour and I talked them out of going to Sanctury Wood and took them to Hooge.

Lee, if the place has a sentimental attraction then you should visit it but try and

walk around the area a bit rather than the museum.

Geoff

[Tim Birch]

I have been there several times. As others have said the museum is an interesting junk yard, the 3-D pictures are gruesome and you will need wellington boots for the trenches. It's wise to ensure that your tetnus jabs are up to date!

Altogether a depressing place, but it was a depressing war.

Tim

[Guest Hill 60]

Lee, if the place has a sentimental attraction then you should visit it but try and walk around the area a bit rather than the museum.

Geoff - Cheers for the advice, I think I'll do what you suggest.

[trenchwalker]

good old fat jack, it's one of the worst places for me on the western front it really does degrade what the war was all about. He has some good stuff which is just decaying into nothing.

Another place is hill 60. He has about 7 lewis guns decaying,He also has a death penny of a friend of mine which he wont give back.

in my opinon visit hooge it is well done with friendly people.

[Terry_Egalton]

I was there this August. The museum is just the same as ever but the trenches have grown - I don't remember so many funk holes. The place has become very artificial but for a first time visitor it does give a feel of what trenches where like.

I would give it 6 out of 10!

Regards

Terry

[trenchwalker]

well the thing is fat jack has got gready and need to make a drama of these trenches,But it is one of the only places jo public can have a look at trenches

if you want to see real treanch go to bosinger near langermarck those trench have now been saved so you have a look at them.

[Terry_Egalton]

Just out of interest, how many preserved trenches are there in the Salient?

[iain mchenry]

Terry,

To my knowledge the only poreserved section of trench in the salient is the Yorkshire trench, courtesy of the Diggers.

Iain

[Mark Hone]

There was quite a long discussion about Sanctuary Wood on an earlier thread about (I think) school visits. I have a love-hate relationship with the place. It is the place kids always remember from the Salient-far more so than the whiz-bangery of 'In Flanders Fields...' It definitely has an atmosphere, however ersatz. My wife always insists on visting it, as do my colleagues on the school tour. I make a talking point out of its artificial aspects and the 'trenches are getting bigger' angle (first noticed by a boy on our 1996 tour) has become a running gag. To a great extent it is a museum of a museum-the last real survivor of the 1920's visitor sites. I just wish the owner wouldn't keep jacking up (pardon the pun) the admission charge.

[stevew]

Amazing how everybody has an opinion on Jack's Place, I had been warned prior to my visit about what it was like, but had been told about the 3-d piccies, so I decided I would make the trip.

Personally the 3-d pictures made the trip worthwhile - as for the trenches............... the best they did for me was give me a 'feel' for what it must of been like (wading around in all that mud).

Hooge is a far better museum, Hill 60 is good as it is very cheap (1.5 Euros I think, but don't quote me).

I can also confirm that Jack charges 6 Euros

[paul guthrie]

The horse drawn field cooker alone at Hooge is better than everything put together at Sanctuary Wood.

[CROONAERT]

Terry,

To my knowledge the only poreserved section of trench in the salient is the Yorkshire trench, courtesy of the Diggers.

Iain

...and on the same style (though not scale),and now a little decayed, there's the one's in the grounds of the Kasteelhof at Hooge. Also, the trenches in Croonaert Wood/Bayernwald/Bois de Quarante are scheduled (according to a leaflet picked up in August) to be re-opened to the public in April 2004.

The "Vimy Ridge" style of preservation can also be found at the "Trench of Death" at Oud Stuivenskerke north of Dixmuide.

Dave.

[garyem1]

Lee,

You must visit the museum and trenches just to see for yourself, and it is not just the museum you have Sanctuary wood cemetery to visit, and a few hundred yards up the road from the museum is Hill 62. The Canadian Memorial.

"Quote"

An officer of the 13th Canadians (Royal Highlanders of Canada) described the wood in mid-1916:

Sanctuary Wood was by this time a wood in name only. Such trees as stood were riven and leafless, while their fallen branches added to the maze of wire and trenches beneath. The air was heavy with the sickening odour of decay, so that the whole battered district, even by day, was a place of grisly horror and evil omen.

garyem

[Myrtle]

the trenches have grown

Gosh they have grown since I visited a few years ago. I found the place strange. The contents of the cabinets and the stacks of rusting metal in the sheds seemed an appalling waste of a resource but then afterwards I realised that there was more of the atmosphere of death about the place than any other museum that I had visited.

In contrast I then went to look at Hill 62 Canadian Memorial and saw an incredible number of rabbits hopping around the large expanse of grass.