Field of Remembrance

The Field of Remembrance is a memorial garden organised annually by the The Poppy Factory in Westminster.

For eight days, from the morning of the Thursday before Remembrance Sunday until the evening of following Thursday, the lawn of St Margaret's Church, Westminster, between Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, is marked out with 250 plots for regimental and armed services associations. Participants are able to buy a wooden token of remembrance (originally remembrance crosses, now a variety of shapes for different religions, including for 'no faith') decorated with a remembrance poppy. The token is generally marked with the name of a member of the armed forces who was killed in action and planted in the appropriate plot. The packed lines of remembrance symbols in the separate plots can resemble a temporary military cemetery. After the Field of Remembrance closes, the crosses are collected and burnt, and the ashes are scattered at the First World War battlefields in northern France and Belgium. Any money raised at the event is traditionally donated by The Poppy Factory to The Royal British Legion.

The Field of Remembrance was first held in 1928, organised by George Arthur Howson, an officer in the British Army in the First World War and founder and chairman of the The Poppy Factory. In the first year, there were only two memorials - one dedicated to "Tommy Atkins" - a nickname for a rank-and-file soldier in the British Army - and one to Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, founder of The Royal British Legion, who had died in January 1928.

...
Wikipedia