Friday morning and our team have already stripped the turf from the southern end of the model town of Messines, close to the site of the church.
Messines Church today.
Here we should find the depiction of the Institution Royale which was built as a monastery and later used as an orphanage and in the early 1900's as a school. After the capture of Messines in 1914, the substantial buildings and their extensive cellars were fortified by the Germans to provide protection from Allied artillery and infantry advances.
A prewar post card of the Institution Royale in Messines.
German Concrete fortifications on the hill at Messines, possibly built inside the
Institution Royale, this image is from the collection of the Australian War Memorial.
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