I'm Stijn Butaye (°1988). I live at a hamlet called St. Juliaan (Julien) situated in the town of Langemark-Poelkapelle, in the heart of Flanders Fields (West Flanders, Belgium). For six years (secondary school), I studied the electricity courses at the technical school in Ypres and additional a year of specialization at the technical school at Poperinge. From my childhood onwards I already was fascinated by light.I finished this education in June 2007. My hobbies are: collecting world war 1 relics, cooperating with the website 'Westhoek Verbeeldt', also other websites, and space travel(see website: Gravitation Sound).

From my childhood onwards I grew up on a farm that was situated in the Ypres front area of World War 1, an area that had to endure a lot of battles. Our farm at that time was known as Pondfarm. As a result of this my first hobby came into being: collecting 'war relics'. From 2003 onwards I started my own collection made up by the war finds coming from our farmlands. Each and every item we found during the agricultural work, I put aside, dated them, photographed and inventarised them.
There's still and always a risk when digging up, finding or storing war ammunition because that ammunition, containing explosives or toxicol substances, now being over 90 years old, may have eroded. While harvesting we thus always have to be very allert and deal carefully with it.
Since 2003 we als found coins dating back to 1853, next to British rifles, bayonettes, shuffles, lead bullets, buttons and different kind of shells or grenades, i.e. Belgian, British, French and German ones.
Dangerous ammunition in this area, at our place as well, once is year is collected by a special unit of the Belgian army called DOVO (i.e. service for the removal and destruction of explosives of the Belgian Army).

The photo above shows me standing at the entrance shaft of the Vampire Dugout at Zonnebeke. This was an 11m. (12 yards) deep subterranean tunnel which was used as a headquarter in World War 1 by the British. One who purchased the book ‘Benath Flanders Fields, as I did, was permitted acces to the tunnel. I very well remember the candles at the joists, the shuffles on the wall and particularly the steady and quickly seeping water. More about the Vampire Dugout can be found here: www.polygonwood.com

At school I once had to make a little study about the Great War. It was not at all difficult for me to make a specific choice on this subject: Pondfarm of course. Out of this school paper my first website grew. On that website all my war finds can be seen and it holds general information about the farm too.
In 2008 I went to London to consult the National Archives and the archives at the Imperial War Museum. I was hoping to find (aerial)photos, trenchmaps, other documents and information about Pondfarm in the Great War period. I was lucky to, at least, having found a photo dating from 1944 of the farm.
It didn't take long for me to start another website too,this time about St. Julien and Poelkapelle (Poelcapelle) during the Great War.

In 2006 I had some important visitors at my doorstep: the people from the (internet)Forum on World War1(Forumeerstewereldoorlog). The farm yard was filled with about 20 cars from people from The Netherlands who came to have a look at our war finds and the bunker. In 2005 I started a topic on Pondfarm on this forum and I put all the photos of my finds on there. The visit was the result of this.
It happens that I don't know the exact nature of my war finds and that's why I always put the photos on the WW-1 forum in order to find out, via information from the forum, what it is and what the risks are.
My Pondfarm topic on the forum can you find here: Pondfarm topic
Eversince my participation on the forum, I regularly have visitors here who are interested in the World War history.

TRANSLATION UNDER COSNYRUCTION:

In August, photographer Marco Magielse from Breda (NL) popped in at the museum on our farm. His idea was to create with this book some overview of the scares of the Great War. Marco's bok is called "Relic (searching for the Great War)". Together with Marco I so visited a number of beautiful sites, as well Bart & Heidi Verfaille of the B&B de Krulleute. The book was published in 2012 and is available with Marco and myself. More information on: Klik Hier.

Een goeie vriend 'Shrapnel Charlie' ofwel yvan Synnaeve uit Sint-Jan maakte van de loden schrapnel balletjes kleine soldaten figuurtjes, hij smolt het lood in vormen, kleefde alles aan elkaar en beschilderde het met een penseel zodat de soldaten uit lood tot leven kwamen! Yvan had iets gemeen met pondfarm, zo kreeg ik de vraag van hem om "schellen" stutten te maken (dialect van: een sneetje brood). Hij bedoelde natuurlijk een "sneetje" bunkersteen, waarop hij er zijn soldaatjes kon plaatsen. Yvan overleed op dinsdag 13 maart 2012, we zullen hem blijven herdenken via z'n prachtige handgemaakte loden kunstwerkjes die hij over de hele wereld heeft verspreid. Rust in vrede Ivan, bedankt voor alles!!! Hier vind je meer over Yvan en z'n kunstwerkjes: Shrapnel Charlie

In juni 2012 werd bij toeval in 2 weken tijd 2 stukken van een tank uit de Eerst wereldoorlog ontdekt in de omgeving van onze boerderij. Een stuk rupsband en een stuk zijplaat van de achterkant van een tank. Ik vroeg Johan Vanbeselaere van de ‘Ypres Salient Tanks’ om advies want we wilden zeker zijn of het hier wel echt om een stuk van een tank ging. Door dit gebeuren ben ikzelf wat meer in het onderwerp tanks verdiept geraakt en mocht ik me aansluiten bij de tankgroep van Johan, waar er een project bezig is om een Replica Tank te bouwen. Dit jaar kreeg ik een certificaat overhandigd van de ‘Ypres Salient Tanks waarvoor veel dank! Meer over de tankvondsten en de tankgroep kunt u hier terugvinden: http://www.depondfarm.be/nl/tanks en www.p1917a.blogspot.be

Our museum is located in an little old house on the farm. It is one of the houses that was built just after the war. At first the farmer lived in there till about 1927, the year he moved to the newly built farm. The small houses then were used by the workmen.
In the years after the war, those men, on Sundays when they had a day off, went searching on the fields to find and collect war material. By selling this, they often earned more then their monthly pay!
The construction and the design of the little house reflect the spirit of the early 20th century. It's austure and modest in size and furnishing. The wooden ceiling, doors and staircase, all have the scent of those bygone days.
Out of this aspect I decided to place the older objects, that were stored on the attic, in what has become my museum: a typical old stove, chairs, horse collars, irons, wafer irons. The museum now contains war relics and antique objects. Still there was one problem. Since, at the time, the only source of light in the house was an oil lamp, it had no electricity supply. In October 2007 I started my job at a lighting company and that gave me the chance to purchase lightfittings that are now installed in the museum(www.supermodular.com). Visiting the place in the evening now is possible as well.

Through the time my interest has expanded and, besides Pondfarm, it reaches out to the complete history of St. Julien and Poelcapelle during the Great War period.

You're welcome to visit these websites as well
www.poelcapelle-area14-18.be
www.sint-juliaan14-18.be

You can contact me at this address:
Email: stijn_butaye@msn.com

(English translation Frank Mahieu; if errors are found, please let us know, thanks)