UPDATE OCTOBER 2021: Dan Cope is running 7 marathons in 7 days, over 195 miles, retracing the journey taken 101 years ago of the unknown British soldier as he was brought from Dover to Westminster Abbey to be laid to rest in the tomb of the Unknown Warrior. Although not the origional plan, it still helps commemorate the 101st anniversary and raise awareness of the great work the Royal British Legion do.

UPDATE MAY 2021: Event cancelled due to covid and unfortunately because of covid uncertainties and other circumstances out of our control we were unable to try again in 2021. Although we are not moving forward with the event, we still told the story to the wider world and marked the occasion in our own ways.

This year is 100 years since the Unknown Warrior was reburied and so to commemorate this important historic occasion as a team we are raising money for the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal so please help, spread the word, share the story and, if you can, please donate.

In the aftermath of World War 1 Reverend David Railton, a serving Army Chaplain on the Western Front, saw a grave marked by a rough cross which was marked in pencil “An Unknown British Soldier”. The sight of the grave resonated with him and to ensure that all families, unable to locate their loved ones lost to the war, would have a grave known to them he proposed that an unknown soldier be given a state funeral, fit for royalty and be buried in Westminster Abbey.

On the 7th of November 1920, four unknown soldiers where exhumed from the battlefields, placed into coffins and brought to a temporary chapel in Saint-Pol-Sur-Ternoise. Inside Brigadier Wyatt with closed eyes rested his hand on one of the coffins; the others were reburied and the unknown warrior rested overnight.

The following morning the coffin began its journey to Westminster and travelled to the medieval castle inside the citadel in Boulogne where it remained overnight in the castle’s library. The library had been transformed into a chapelle ardente and a company from the French 8th Infantry stood vigil overnight.


In the morning the coffin was placed into a casket made from Oak trees from Hampton Court Palace. A crusaders sword chosen by the King and a shield engraved “A British Warrior who fell in The Great War 1914-1918 for King and Country” was then fixed to the casket. The unknown warrior was then drawn on a carriage by 6 black horses to the docks as French bugles played Aux Champs (the French last post). The coffin was piped aboard HMS Verdun to an Admiral’s call and set sail for Dover with a 6 Battleship escort. As it closed on the famous white cliffs a 19-gun Field Marshall’s salute was fired. At Dover Marine Railway Station the casket was moved onto a train and was taken to Victoria Station. It arrived on Platform 8 and remained there overnight until the morning of the 11th November.

On the 11th November 1920, the casket was placed onto a gun carriage and drawn once again by 6 horses to Hyde Park Corner to another Field Marshall’s salute, then down the Mall and to Whitehall where King George V unveiled the Cenotaph and placed a wreath of roses and bayleaves upon the casket. The King then escorted the unknown warrior with his family, MPs and 100 widowed mothers to Westminster Abbey. The casket was interred in soil from all the major French battlefields and covered with a silk Pal. The grave was capped with a black Belgian marble slab which was engraved and inlaid with brass melted down from wartime ammunition.

To this day the tomb of the Unknown Warrior has remained the only tomb that it is forbidden to walk upon; it rests a Hero to the nation, unknown yet well known.