Sint-Elooi

Sint-Elooi is a small village, about 5 km (3.1 mi) south of Ypres in the Flemish province of West Flanders in Belgium.

The village takes its name from Saint Eligius (also Eloy or Loye, French: Éloi, c. 588–660 who worked for twenty years to convert the pagan population of Flanders to Christianity.

[3] The geology of the Ypres Salient featured a characteristic layer of sandy clay, which put very heavy pressures of water and wet sand on the underground works and made deep mining extremely difficult.

[6][3] However, the accompanying British infantry operation was a failure; the problem lay in the Allied inability to hold crater positions after they had been captured.

Twenty-six deep mines were eventually dug by Tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers, most of which were detonated simultaneously on 7 June 1917, creating 19 large craters.

The brick plinth bears transparent plaques with details of the mining activities by 172nd Tunnelling Company and an extract from the poem Trenches: St Eloi by the war poet T.E.

Map showing Sint-Elooi/St Eloi south of Ypres and the front line in the Ypres Salient of June 1916.
Map of St Eloi with craters of the six mines fired on 27 March 1916 and plan of the deep mine fired on 7 June 1917 as part of the mines in the Battle of Messines .