Historic carriage returns for Remembrance events

The carriage used to repatriate the body of the Unknown Warrior will be on display in Kent as part of Remembrance Day events.

The Cavell Van will be at Dover's cruise terminal between 7 and 16 November, the same location as its arrival in England just after World War One.

It is named after Edith Cavell, the British nurse executed by the Germans in 1915 for helping prisoners of war escape, whose body was also repatriated in the carriage in 1919.

In the same year it was used to bring home the body of Charles Fryatt, a British merchant navy captain executed for using his ship to ram a German U-boat off the coast of Belgium in 1916.

The Unknown Warrior was an unidentified soldier whose remains were brought from the battlefield, to be given a state funeral and burial in Westminster Abbey in 1920.

In all three repatriations the carriage arrived at Dover Marine station at the Western Docks, now the site of the cruise terminal.

The van, built in the 19th Century, was restored in 2010, having been used by South Eastern and Chatham Railway, the Southern Railway and British Railways.

Its permanent home is now with the Kent and East Sussex Railway at Bodiam Station in East Sussex.

It will be displayed on a length of track provided by Network Rail.

Visits will be in blocks of one hour and must be booked online.

Diederik Smet from the Port of Dover said: "The Port is proud to have the Cavell Van on display in the exact location where it began its historic journeys to Westminster Abbey over 100 years ago.

Follow BBC Kent on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250.