Bayeux Commonwealth War Cemetery
— rows of white, kept by Normandy grass.
Not only on a wall.
“The largest Commonwealth war cemetery in Normandy, on the inland side of Bayeux. 4,648 Commonwealth headstones in long rows on a green lawn, designed by Sir Philip Hepworth and completed in 1952. Most of the men died in the weeks after D-Day. Five hundred more graves, the majority German, lie in the same grass, kept by the same hands. Across the road, the Bayeux Memorial names more than 1,800 with no known grave. Bayeux was the first French town liberated, on June 7th, 1944. People come, walk the rows slowly, and leave. The town keeps going, with its cathedral and the Bayeux Tapestry, a few minutes away.
Bayeux Commonwealth War Cemetery, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Bayeux Commonwealth War Cemetery sits on Boulevard Fabian Ware, on the southwest edge of Bayeux in Normandy, about ten kilometres inland from the D-Day beaches at Gold and Omaha. It is the largest Commonwealth Second World War cemetery in France, holding 4,648 Commonwealth burials, 338 of them unidentified. A further 500 graves hold soldiers of other nationalities, the majority of them German. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, founded by Sir Fabian Ware, took the land here in 1944, and the cemetery was completed in 1952. Most of those buried died in the Battle of Normandy that began on 6 June 1944. Across the road, the Bayeux Memorial names more than 1,800 Commonwealth servicemen who died in the campaign and have no known grave.
The cemetery is the work of Sir Philip Hepworth, the British architect who designed several Commonwealth cemeteries in France after the Second World War. Headstones are the standard Portland stone the Commission uses across its sites, 76 centimetres tall, set in long parallel rows on a low green lawn. Each is carved with a regimental badge, a name, an age, and where the family wished it, a personal inscription. The Cross of Sacrifice stands at the front; the Stone of Remembrance, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, sits at the centre of the lawn. Across the road, the Bayeux Memorial carries a Latin frieze: Nos a Gulielmo victi victoris patriam liberavimus, meaning 'we, once conquered by William, have liberated the conqueror's native land.' William the Conqueror set out from Normandy in 1066.
The cemetery is open to the public free of charge, every day, during daylight hours. Boulevard Fabian Ware runs along its eastern boundary, with parking on the road and at the adjacent Mémorial de la Bataille de Normandie museum. The Bayeux Memorial faces the cemetery across the road and is open in the same hours. Visitors are asked to walk quietly between the rows and to leave the personal inscriptions, regimental badges, and any small mementoes left by families undisturbed. The Bayeux town centre, the cathedral, and the Bayeux Tapestry museum are all within fifteen minutes' walk. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains the cemetery; full lists of the dead, with photographs of every headstone, are searchable on their public register.