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Sanctuary Wood Museum Hill 62

Private museum near Ypres with First World War objects, 3D photographs and preserved British trenches in Sanctuary Wood.

Ask the museum for opening hours Café

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About the museum

Sanctuary Wood Museum is located on Hill 62, about three kilometres east of Ypres, close to the Canadian Hill 62 Memorial and the Sanctuary Wood Cemetery. In June 1916 fierce fighting took place here between Canadian and German troops.

The history of the museum begins in 1919. When the farmer Schier returned to his destroyed land, it was full of trenches, shell craters and objects from the war. He decided to leave the site as it was and turn it into a museum. He built a small building, began collecting objects, and as early as the 1920s was giving tours to the first visitors, mainly soldiers and bereaved relatives. The museum is still privately owned by his family.

Today you can see a collection of objects from the First World War, including weapons, uniforms and grenades, and a remarkable series of three-dimensional photographs that you view in wooden viewers. Behind the museum lies a preserved part of the British trench system, one of the few places in the Ypres Salient where you can see an original trench pattern. In the 1980s a subsidence revealed an underground tunnel, which was later cleared and lit.

Highlights

Preserved British trenches behind the museum
Three-dimensional First World War photographs in wooden viewers
Collection of weapons, uniforms and grenades
An underground tunnel discovered and lit in the 1980s
Close to the Canadian Hill 62 Memorial and Sanctuary Wood Cemetery