Gonnehem British Cemetery
The small roadside cemetery, probably only nominally linked to Lutyens, uses a semicircular shrub apse around the Cross of Sacrifice to give its simple walled, hedged rectangular grave field the character of an open‑air chapel, entered through plain brick gatepiers with a modest brick toolhouse inside.
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Description
The IWGC did not attribute the design of the cemetery to Lutyens, but the approval form refers to him as the architect responsible. The limited size of the cemetery makes it improbable that Lutyens had anything to do with design. However, the cemetery displays how a careful design can be generated with simple resources.
The cemetery lies just outside the village. In the rectangular field with graves, a semicircle with shrubs has been added to the Cross of Sacrifice. This apse form allocates the entire cemetery an aura of an open-air chapel. In this case, the graves are directed away from the Cross of Sacrifice. A brick wall encompasses the field with graves on two sides and a hedge runs alongside the road and behind the Cross of Sacrifice. The wall turns around the corner at the road and connects to the entrance, which consists of two brick pillars with a gateway. There is also a simple brick toolhouse in the cemetery. (Geurst, 2010, p.306)
Bibliography
Geurst, J. (2010) Cemeteries of the Great War by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers.
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