Pool of Peace

The peace after the war

The Spanbroekmolen (Kruisstraat - Wijtschate) of the Deconinck family towers high above the ridge of Wijtschate and Mesen. When German troops set fire to the mill in October 1914, August and his brother fled to France. The strategic high position was hotly contested and in January 1916 British tunnellers began to undermine the old mill site. On June 7, 1917 the time had come. At 3:10 am, 19 British mines exploded under the 'Messines Ridge'. At the Spanbroekmolen the explosion may have taken place a few seconds too late due to enemy sabotage, while the stampede was already underway. In the nearby cemetery you can find the graves of the overly industrious Northern Irish boys. Silent witnesses of the largest explosion ever in Belgium.

In 1929, Tubby Clayton organized his umpteenth pilgrimage to the Ypres Salient. After enjoying the view of the Kemmelberg, a limited group walks back to Ypres via Sint-Elooi. It is then, as the sun sets, that Tubby gets the idea to buy the crater of Sint-Elooi. He immediately launched an appeal in the Times with the headline “A Pool of Peace: the last crater at St. Eloi”. In his plea to make it a pool of peace for posterity, Tubby refers to “a pool of peace, where the wrath of man could be exalted to the glory of God.”

Back in the UK, the secretary of a wealthy oil baron, Paul Slessor, reads the call and calls in his boss. That is Lord Wakefield of Hyth, the then owner of Castrol Oil. Wakefield wants to buy the crater and sends Slessor to Ypres to settle the matter. When Slessor gathers information on site on behalf of Wakefield, the advice of the British war graves service, the Imperial War Graves Commission, is also requested. However, they soon propose the Spanbroek mill as a better alternative. After long and difficult negotiations, Wakefield purchases plots of land on which the crater is located from 6 different owners. On April 1, 1933, he sold the crater for a symbolic franc to the non-profit organization Talbot House, the current owner.

The crater, known from the beginning as the Pool of Peace, was declared a monument on June 2, 1992. Soldiers who fought here may never have guessed that years after the catastrophic explosion, the area would become an oasis of peace and tranquility. Nature has managed to heal the scar of war in a beautiful way.