The Somme tourist board

Longueval and Delville Wood, for the South African Memorial and Museum, cemetery and Visitor Centre, commemorating the intense action of the South African Troops in Delville Wood, known to the British Army as « Delvil’s Wood ».

The memorial

It stands on the edge of the wood in which the South African were committed to the Battle of the Somme in July 1916. The 63-hectares site of the South African infantry division engagement in july 1916, was bought by the South African government in 1920 to build the national memorial.

The memorial inaugurated in 1926, stands at the end of an oak-lined avenue grown from acorns from South Africa. The arch of the monument bears a bronze statue representing Castor and Pollux with a single steed between them, symbol of all the nations of South Africa.

The museum

The stricking museum building on the edge of the wood recreates the form of an early Dutch settlement in South Africa. Standing behind the memorial, designed round the Cross of Sacrifice and opened in 1986, the museum is a replica of the Cape Fort. It commemorates the South African contribution to the First World War, the Second World War, the Berlin Air-Lift and the Korean War.