Ypres (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – A 7-meter British WWI soldier statue, The Hauntings by Jo Oliver and Stin Butaye, was displayed at Ypres’ Menin Gate (54,896 names) from Oct 7–Nov 30, 2025.
As VRT News reported, a giant statue of a British soldier from the First World War has been placed at the Menin Gate in Ypres. The figure stands nearly 7 meters tall. It was created by a group of British artists and Stin Butaye, 37-year-old from Sint-Julian near Langemark-Poelkapelle.
Butaye and a group of friends have spent several years restoring a World War I tank. They have shown the tank at events across Europe, including twice in Dorset, England. The soldier statue was also displayed there. Butaye said he became friends with the British team. The group works together on projects related to World War I.
“Whenever there is something to do with WWI, we help each other,”
he said.
Who brought the 7m WWI soldier statue to Ypres’ Menin Gate?
Officials mentioned that for the British artists, having the statue at the Menin Gate was a long-standing goal. Butaye was the only Flemish member of the project and helped make it possible. He said,
“I tried to help them in every possible way, and now we have succeeded.”
He mentioned that moving the large statue was challenging, especially since Brexit made transport more complicated. Despite these difficulties, the team managed to place the sculpture at the Menin Gate.
“The ship ran into problems: the statue passed through English customs, but not French. Then they tried the Eurotunnel, and that’s how it finally arrived here. The statue was initially stored for a while in a barn at our Pondfarm farm,”
Butaye said.
Stin Butaye said,
“Brexit is costing us a lot of money, and there is a lot of paperwork involved.”
He added that even one missing item can create problems. Despite the difficulties, the team managed to bring a 25-ton tank to England and the giant soldier statue to Ypres.
Stijn Butaye:
“I hope many people will take a photo of the artwork and the gate during the Armistice.”
The name of the statue is The Hauntings. British artist Jo Oliver created it because she remembers hearing stories as a child about a soldier still present in the fields of Flanders. According to Oliver, she wanted the statue to represent the everyday soldier, not a hero.
The soldier looms over the Menin Gate, a memorial site in Ypres, Belgium, that displays the names of thousands of soldiers who never came home. The statue will remain at the Menin Gate until 7th December 2025; afterwards, it will return to England.
Designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield, The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing was unveiled on July 24, 1927. The Gate Memorial was designed to honor the British and Commonwealth soldiers who fell in the Ypres Salient in World War I and for whom no graves were found. The memorial became an emblem of remembrance since it memorialized 54,896 soldiers.
Since the first of July in 1928 and on each successive day of every year, the Last Post has been played under the Gate at 8 in the evening. This routinely stops only under exceptional conditions, like at World War II German occupation. The year 2025 saw the memorial in the Menin Gate taking preparatory steps since it was centenary for the memorial.
