Hill 60 is the wartime name for the high ground close to the village of Zillebeke created when a railway cutting was made here in the nineteenth century. Before the war its was known locally as ‘Lover’s Knoll’, and was a favourite haunt of courting couples. By the conclusion of the First Battle of Ypres in 1914 it was on the front line, with positions held on the slopes by French troops and the high ground largely in the hands of the Germans. British troops took over in early 1915, with the 2nd Battalion Monmouthsire Regiment being one of the earliest units to serve here. During the Second Battle of Ypres in April and May 1915 the Hill saw heavy fighting, with four Victoria Crosses being awarded for one day alone; one of them to 2/Lt Harold Woolley of the Queen Victoria’s Rifles - the first Territorial officer to be awarded the VC in the Great War.

After Second Ypres the Germans had the dominance of the ground here, with direct views beyond the British front line into Ypres. A long period of static trench warfare followed, with units from Australia, Britain and Canada serving here into early 1917. Among them were several famous names. In 1916 the famous Canadian poet Robert Service was here with the Canadian Army Medical Corps (his brother Albert was killed on the Hill in August 1916 and is buried in nearby Railway Dugouts) and in 1917 future Prime Minister Anthony Eden served near the Hill with the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. Francis Buckley, a soldier-author who served with the 1/7th Northumberland Fusiliers, described life at the Hill in 1916.

“A glance at the official plan of the trenches at Hill 60 will give some idea of the extraordinary place it was. Whilst the German line ran solid along the top of the ridge, there were two complete gaps in the British fire trenches... On paper it looks as if there were nothing to stop the Germans across and behind our lines whenever he chose. But I imagine these empty spaces were covered by machine-gun posts... Another feature of the place was the awful nature of the ground outside the trenches. It was a morass filled with partially buried bodies - that is partially buried by nature in the ooze and mud. During a dense mist about seventy identity disks were recovered from the ground behind our support lines... One of the features of the place was the number and size of the rats; they looked like the size of rabbits as they scuttered along the trenches at night.” (Francis Buckley, Q 6 A & Other Stories)

The Hill from 1915 also became an area of intensive mining activity where both sides tunnelled underneath No Man’s Land and laid charges of explosive. By 1916 the numerous overlapping craters formed a gully on the slope of the Hill which is still there today, and which at that time separated the two sets of trenches; showing how close together opposing sides lived during the war.

Hill 60 was captured by the 11th Battalion West Yorkshires on 7th June 1917 during the Battle of Messines, when two huge mines were blown; one on the Hill itself which was a charge of more than 53,000 lbs blown by the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, whose memorial is on the Hill, who also blew the neighbouring Caterpillar Crater. The hill remained behind the British lines, and in early 1918 Australian Engineers built an Observation Bunker on the eastern side, with good views across Battle Wood towards Hollebeke. The Hill fell back into German hands again during the Battle of the Lys in April 1918, and was recaptured by British troops, with American units on their flanks, in the Fourth Battle of Ypres in September 1918.

The Hill was given to the British government in 1919, and the area became a major tourist attraction in the 1920s and 30s, when a ‘trench museum’ was built by British veterans in the ground opposite the Hill. A memorial to the Queen Victoria’s Rifles was placed on the Hill, along with a Memorial to the Australian Tunnellers. Fighting in 1940 destroyed the QVR Memorial, and the Australian one was damaged in 1944. The trench museum was gone by the 1950s, and in the 1970s the 14th (Light) Division Memorial was moved here from Railway Wood. In the late 1980s a new museum/cafe was opened, with some of the collection from Hill 62, and it remained open until the early years of the twenty-first century when it was closed, the building demolished and a Cafe bearing the name Hill 60 built in its place.

During the winter of 2009/2010, the ground in front of Hill 60 and opposite the Australian Memorial was the subject of proposed building work, and is being objected to by a campaign to Save Hill 60. Show your support by signing their petition.

Access to Hill 60 is gained by using the parking area near the railway cutting, and in front of the 14th (Light) Division Memorial. From here walk past the Australian Tunnellers memorial and through the gate onto the Hill.

Author and Historian Rose Coombes stated that the Hill was the burial place of at least 8,000 men of both sides; it is a grave site as well as a memorial; tread softly here.