ENDICOTT-L Archives

From: Kyle Elwood <>
Subject: [E-cott] World War I: Devonshire Cemetery in France
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 02:21:17 -0700

ARTICLE 1

We will remember them

by CHRIS MILLS

The Devonshire Cemetery is one of the smallest and most poignant of memorials which
litter the Somme.

Unlike other graveyards where the dead of different regiments and nations are mixed
into together, it is devoted to a single unit and their dead from one day.

Three days after the attack the Germans were forced back and the Devons collected
their dead from no man's land.

A mass grave was fashioned out of the support line trench from where they went over
the top and a wooden plaque was set up reading 'The Devonshires held this trench,
The Devonshires hold it still'.

The present cemetery directly over the grave was consecrated in the 1920s.

Two long rows of headstones are overlooked by a simple stone cross. The narrow
enclosure is bordered by a brick wall and sandwiched between a copse and a slope.
Visitors can sign the book which is left in a metal-handled safe, together with a
list of those interred.

>From the copse looking north towards Mametz village, visitors can see the ground
over which the 8th and 9th stumbled on July 1. Mansell Copse has since gone under
the plough but when it rains the outlines of trenches can be seen through the chalk
soil.

DIRECTIONS:

BY ROAD: From Calais ferryport and Eurotunnel terminal, take A26 motorway for
Bethune and Paris to junction with A1 (Autoroute de Nord), take A1 south
and come off at junction 14 for Bapaume, then follow D929 s to Albert. On Albert
ring road take first left D938 for Mametz and Peronne. The Devonshire Cemetery sign
is about 500 metres past the Mametz turn-off on the D938.

BY RAIL: Take Eurostar to international terminal at Lille, then stopping train to
Albert. Taxis and bikes for hire outside station.

ARTICLE 2

Heroes all all

MEN of the 8th and 9th Battalions buried in the Devonshire Cemetery - all killed on
July 1, 1916 Pte R.

On this list was:

Pte Samuel Endicott, 33, from Axminster

This thread:

• [E-cott] World War I: Devonshire Cemetery in France by Kyle Elwood <>