Hooge Museum

Location

The Hooge Crater Museum is 4 km east of Ieper town centre on the Meenseweg (N8), connecting Ieper to Menen (As in Menin). From Ieper town centre the Meenseweg is located via Torhoutstraat and right onto Basculestraat. Basculestraat ends at a main crossroads, directly over which begins the Meenseweg.

The museum is located in the former chapel 3.5 km along the Meenseweg on the left hand side of the road immediately opposite Hooge Crater Cemetery.

There is a parking area immediately in front of the museum.

Hooge Crater Museum opposite Hooge Crater Cemetery

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Museum and Café

This small private museum is quite superb and has an excellent selection of dioramas, artefacts grouped by army.

It boasts a replica Fokker Triplane and a vintage Ford T Ambulance amongst its treasures. There is also a display of items found by The Diggers during their excavation of the Yorkshire Trench in Ieper.

The collection is housed in the former Hooge Chapel which had been built in the 1920s to commemorate the soldiers who had fallen during the battles around Hooge. It had begun to fall into disrepair and was bought by the Smul-Ceuninck family in 1992 and the museum opened in the spring of 1994.

It changed hands in going to Niek and Ilse Benoot–Watteyne in 2009 but remains a private museum.

The museum is rightly popular with tourists and the day I was there it was thronging with a school party from Kent.

The café is housed in the former village school. It provides a wide selection of beers and beverages as well as an assortment of home prepared pies and sandwiches.

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Some photos from the museum

Click on the thumbnail for a larger version

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