CWGC Nicosia (Waynes Keep) Military Cemetery

Location

Nicosia War Cemetery and Nicosia (Waynes Keep) Military Cemetery are 4 kilometres west of Nicosia, on the Myrtou road, and inside the 'buffer zone'.

Nicosia War Cemetery for the 1939-1945 War contains 218 burials and Nicosia (Waynes Keep) Cemetery contains service graves post 1947.

Visiting Information

Nicosia (Waynes Keep) Military Cemetery is situated within the UN Buffer Zone some 4 kms west of the city of Nicosia. Access to both the war and military cemeteries is possible from either side of the island. Visitors from the north will have to be in possession of a valid EU passport.

Visitors require permission to enter the cemeteries and a United Nations escort is necessary. This will normally be provided by a British soldier serving with the UN contingent, visits usually being restricted to between 09.00 and 12.00 Mondays to Fridays. Visitors should be aware however, that for military reasons it is not always possible to provide a guide and in such circumstances, access to the site will not be possible.

Visitors should therefore provide as much notice as possible. All enquiries concerning visits should be made at the Defence Section at the British High Commission, Nicosia.

Waynes Keep History

Waynes Keep is named after Mr Richard St J O Wayne. He lived in a two storey house on a ridge in the vicinity of what is now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery. Wayne worked for the British Colonial Administrative Service in Cyprus on two separate occasions, between 1927 to 1947. The house which is sadly no longer standing was subsequently used as the residence of British Commanders-in-Chief.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission established the Cemetery during the 1939-45 war for the burial of servicemen and their dependants who died whilst on duty in Cyprus.

The Cemetery holds three memorials.

The first is the Cross of Sacrifice, common to all CWGC cemeteries worldwide.

The second commemorates 58 Cypriots of the Cyprus Regiment and the Cyprus Volunteers, buried in village cemeteries in various parts of the island. Some lie in family graves and others in collective graves, where commemoration by the usual commission headstone and permanent maintenance of the graves were not possible. The memorial takes the form of a pylon of local stone 2 metres high. The names of those commemorated are carved on the memorial with an appropriate inscription.

The third is the Nicosia Cremation Memorial that honours 73 soldiers of undivided India, whose remains were accorded the last rites required by their religion which is committal to fire. The memorial takes the form of a stone of pylon, winged and surmounted by an urn. On the memorial are engraved the names of those whom it honours and a suitable inscription in English, Hindu and Gurumukhi.

Within Waynes Keep Cemetery, lie 409 Royal Navy, Army and RAF personnel, together with 167 dependants and service employed civilians. In addition, there are 6 German Aircrew from a bomber crew that crashed on the island in WW2. 15 Parachute Regiment soldiers are buried in Waynes Keep all remembered on the GRAVEWATCH list. 

This makes a total of 582 graves within the cemetery. Since 1974, the cemetery has been within the confines of the United Nations Buffer Zone which is a restricted area of the island.

Several of our soldiers gravestones need urgent attention, and this has now been passed onto the CWWG Commission for action in the near future.

Information and images kindly supplied by Gil Boyd BEM