Today, UKPHA was invited to Wellington Barracks by The First Minister of the Government of Flanders to witness 'The Arrival of the Soil ceremony'.

The soil, collected by British and Belgian schoolchildren from WW1 battle sites of the Western Front and put into 70 sandbags, arrived on the Belgian Navy frigate Louisa Marie on Friday.

It went on a ceremonial procession through London before reaching its last resting place at Wellington Barracks.

The bags were loaded onto the gun carriage of the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery along with a crucible of soil from all the battlefields.

Pictured here are the 70 bags of soil. Later today they will be placed 'at the heart' of the garden where the words of John McCrae's famous poem, 'In Flanders' Fields', is inscribed.

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