It has a carpet of poppies, the flower which features in the opening line of the famous First World War poem by Lt-Col John McCrae, which includes the words: "In Flanders fields the poppies blow."
The field with the poppies shown here is on Wrawby Road, directly opposite the entrance to Churchill Avenue. The tall poplar trees mark the boundary of the Recreation Ground.
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Poppy seeds can remain dormant in the ground for centuries.
While conducting a burial service for a friend in 1915, McCrea observed that poppies grow quickly around the battlefield bourial plots.
He wrote the poem the following day whilst sitting in the back of an ambulance. The poem appears to describe McCrea's direct observations of the scene at the Western Front.
After the Armitice, the churned ground of no-man's land was covered in poppies by spring 1919.
Subsequently, promoted by McCrea's poem, the poppy symbolised remembrance....
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