Belgian Soldiers Headstone Netley Military Cemetery Editorial Image

Royal Victoria Country Park Southampton. From 1863 until 1966, the site was home to the Royal Victoria Hospital. The site was acquired by Hampshire County Council in 1969, who opened the park to the public in 1970. All that remains of the hospital is the chapel, which acts as a heritage centre providing history of the hospital. It also has a 150-foot 46 m viewing tower, providing views over the park, and across Southampton Water to Hythe, and on a clear day, as far as Southampton itself. The Netley Military Cemetery to the rear of the hospital site, primarily for patients, is accessible to the public by a private footpath and with a lockable security fence, a key to which can be obtained from the shop next to the tearooms. Among those buried here are 636 Commonwealth service personnel who died in the First World War and 35 in the Second World War whose graves are maintained and registered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, who also care for the war graves of 69 Germans and 12 Belgians from the First and of one Polish soldier from the Second war.