Ambulances in front of the ruined Cloth Hall, Ypres, 1915 (c)

Photograph, 1915 (c).

At the centre of Ypres stood the huge, thirteenth-century Cloth Hall, one of the finest examples of Flemish medieval civic architecture and the economic heart of the town. The gradual destruction of Ypres during the war was epitomised by that of the Cloth Hall, which also came to symbolise the effect of war upon western civilisation. Since the war, the Cloth Hall has been meticulously rebuilt to its original form and it now houses the Flanders Fields Museum.

From the third of three albums compiled by Lilian Franklin OBE, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, 1914-1918.