Boterstraat, Ypres.
Belgian staff car posed in the ruins of Boterstraat
with two female civilians.
Looking through the Grote Markt
towards the Menin Gate.
The angle of the Cloth Hall in Grote Markt means
it is hidden by the buildings on the left.
Painted sky-blue, it was one of 6 estaminets built on the
Grand Place in early 1919 to cater to the tourist trade.
Built by a cabaret bar owner from Brussels, it caused
Canadian Major Henry Beckles Willson, the last Town Major of Ypres, to write to the Belgian Minister of Internal Affaires in July 1919 to complain that Ypres was becoming a tourist attraction and that French and Belgian visitors rebuked the British as they thought them responsible for the 'British Tavern' estaminet.
The temporary estaminets remained on the Grand Place
until 1922/3 by which time the original stone buildings
had been restored.
Beckles Willson was fiercely critical of Ypres being rebuilt
and argued that the ruins should be preserved as a shrine
to the war dead.
of D'Hondstraat where the jewellers shop
now stands.