THE FOREIGN FIELDS Cannock Chase

High among the heathlands of the Cannock Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, you’ll find two striking war memorials that offer a real change of perspective. The smaller of the two, just above Broadhurst Green, is the Commonwealth War Cemetery. It contains the graves of 97 servicemen from across the Commonwealth nations who died in the First World War. Many of them were New Zealanders, as the New Zealand Rifle Brigade had been trained on the Chase.

Just east of it is the much larger German Military Cemetery, which contains over 5000 burials of German and Austrian personnel who died on British soil during the two world wars. The majority were aircrew shot down during bombing raids (including the crews of four Zeppelin airships shot down in the First World War). Others were prisoners of war or naval personnel.

In 1959, the British and German governments agreed to move all the German burials on British soil to one central location. Cannock Chase was chosen because of its open spaces and easy access for relatives from abroad.

The architecture is stark and monolithic; there are rows of identical slate-grey headstones carved in an austere German font. It’s a sobering reminder that grief crossed boundaries. Just like the British men buried beneath all those endless white crosses on the battlefields of France and Belgium, these men died a long way from home. WALK HERE: Download Cannock Chase at www.lfto.com/bonusroutes