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Aremembrance cross is a small wooden cross used to remember the sacrifice of the armed forces in the United Kingdom, particularly during Remembrancetide, the period of the annualPoppy Appeal. Remembrance crosses are produced by thePoppy Factory in Richmond andLady Haig's Poppy Factory in Edinburgh, which also produceremembrance poppies and wreaths. A remembrance cross is usually decorated with a remembrance poppy and the phrase "Remembrance" or "In Remembrance",
The remembrance cross employs an explicitly Christian symbol, linking the loss of a deceased soldier with the sacrificial death ofJesus on the cross. Othertokens of remembrance are now also made in a variety of shapes for other religions, including aStar of David for the Jewish faith, a crescent for the Muslim faith, an IndianKhanda used for Hindus, Sikhs and Jains, and a plain shape for "no faith".
Remembrance crosses and other tokens of remembrance are often left atwar memorials orwar graves. Each year, in the eight days from the morning of the Thursday beforeRemembrance Sunday until the evening of following Thursday, plots in theField of Remembrance in Westminster are planted with hundreds of remembrance crosses and other tokens of remembrance. After the Field of Remembrance closes, the tokens are collected and burnt, and the ashes are scattered at the First World War battlefields in northern France and Belgium.
