Sanctuary Wood Museum — Attraction in Ypres

Officially the worst museum I've ever been to (and I'm not a complainer/frequent bad reviewer).Extremely surprised that it has so many positive reviews.we were on a cycle tour of Flanders and the route between Kortrijk and Ypres took us near here.we were really looking forward to it; to see the preserved trenches and shell holes and to understand what happened at Hill 62.we were so disappointed.we learned absolutely nothing from the museum.there were lots of WW1 memorabilia in cases (e.g. uniforms, equipment, weaponry) and harrowing photographs but absolutely no information to accompany them (in any language). Some of the displays were very odd indeed - part of the museum which is inside of a small (modern) house contains dummies in outfits not at all tastefully done e.g. An obvioualy female mannequin has a felt moustache stuck on her face; a uniformed torso with no limbs sits jauntily on the floor... The trenches are well preserved but again there is no information to tell us about what the position at Hill 62 was for / what the aims were / who was involved / what the actual conditions were like (it's towards the foot of a hill so seems an unusual position). Feels like someone collected a lot of stuff and decided to try to make money out of it,putting in limited thought/effort. Had the museum been cheaper, I might have been a little more forgiving in my review.As it stands its only a fraction less expensive than the In Flanders Fields museum in Ypres which was absolutely excellent. It seems a real shame when there is clearly an interesting story to tell here and it honestly wouldn't take too much effort to gives visitors information to give context to the exhibits (and to arrange for some more tasteful/appropriate...

My 1 star is only based on the lack of Respect we encountered. On the 5th of October we went to this Museum. Although inside may of not been the best we really only came to see the trenchs, we were blown away at first. What an eerie feeling to be standing on the grounds where tens and thousands of men died. After about 15-20mins a big school group came through and the lack of respect they had was disgusting...running through the trenchs screaming and carrying on. Running and jumping into the trenchs and over them....the teachers didnt even once try to put them in line. We were disgusted!

We ended up finishing the other little part of the museum and once again these kids ran through, and started banging on the very old Piano. We decided to go to the front desk and tell the admin about how disrespectful these teens were being and she literally didnt even care, in fact she had a little giggle with one of the teachers that was standing there. She continued to say "They are only kids". My elderly grandmother was with us, and she was so upset (she saw the horrors of WW2) and still the lady at the desk seemed to not care and think it was good to smirk instead.

That school should never be allowed to go back. These kids are 17-18 years old and should know better. The trenches should be walked with care and respect. And to hear and see what we saw, we were absolutely in shock. The teachers should be ashamed of themselves and the lady at the desk should of immediately gone to the group and...

Summary - a very good museum that has realistic trenches and lots of great artefacts to see. Well worth a visit if you’re interested in WW1.

This museum is located just outside of Ypres and is quite easy to find with good parking. There is a small restaurant (we didn’t eat there). The museum itself has two separate indoor spaces full of artefacts (guns, badges, shell casings and the like) with a very large outdoor area that contains the trenches and tunnels.

The trenches seem pretty realistic though I suspect it was a very different picture 100 years ago. It’s gives a feel for what trenches would have been like. There are also tunnels which are dark and small.

Around the trenches are lots of holes where shells obviously hit and these give a real sense of how close they were to the people in the trenches.

All in all a very good museum and...