The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20180318110621/https://www.cwgc.org/learn/public-engagement/ukna

Nearby cemeteries & memorials

We are building a local, community engagement infrastructure in the UK with your help. We are connecting with local people and places and reconnecting neighbourhoods with the First World War and Second World War stories held within their local cemeteries. Volunteer champions, researchers and partner organisations are working with us to tell the stories of their local war graves.

How you can support the work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission:

  • organise a class visit to one of the 12,000 UK locations and use our education pack to support your learning experience
  • research the individuals commemorated at your local cemetery and inspire others to remember them
  • lay your favourite flowers or write a poem - creative responses can be very powerful     

Brookwood Military Cemetery, UK: event to mark the end of the centenary of the 141 days of the Battle of the Somme - 18 November 2016

An event held at Brookwood Military Cemetery, Surrey, to mark the end of the centenary of the 141 days of the Battle of the Somme - Living Memory Project 2016 in Partnership with Big Ideas Company

UK Case Studies

"I looked out of the window at the local CWGC cemetery for years, but have only now gone to investigate the graves, the local history, and the Commission's work [because of the Living Memory Project]." - Teacher, Fife School, Scotland.

Pupils from Wildern Secondary School at the Battle of the Somme Commemoration in Netley Cemetery
Pupils from Wildern Secondary School at the Battle of the Somme Commemoration in Netley Cemetery - Living Memory Project 2016 in Partnership with Big Ideas Company

In 2016 as part of the Living Memory project, The Royal Victoria Country Park Learning and Participation Officer led a project of discovery for local schools to raise awareness of CWGC graves on the site of the Victoria Military Hospital, Hampshire, which is now the Royal Victoria Country Park. The project was to commemorate the Battle of the Somme and try to identify whether there were any casualties from the Somme in the cemetery. One hundred and thirty-three were identified using the CWGC database. Students from Wildern Secondary School in Southampton were then encouraged to look at the individuals and research their possible involvement in the battle. They then visited the cemetery to locate the headstones of their soldiers.

"It felt good when we found out something new about our person that people didn’t know before." - a student said.

International Community