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The installation, called "Blood Swept Lands And Seas Of Red," is at the moment made up of 120,000 ceramic poppies, a carpet of crimson. The red tide will widen in the coming months until there are 888,246 poppies — one for each of the British and Commonwealth soldiers killed in the war.



Poppies became a symbol of war dead after the crimson flowers sprang up across the battlefields of Belgium where hundreds of thousands of soldiers died in World War I. The poem "In Flanders Fields," written by a Canadian doctor who ran a field hospital during the war, begins with the famous line, "In Flanders fields, the poppies blow — Between the crosses, row on row."


Poppies were later adopted as a symbol of remembrance and are often sold on holidays honoring veterans to benefit soldiers' charities.

The installation will continue through Nov. 11, the day World War I ended in 1918.

Each of the poppies in the Tower of London moat took three days to make. They will later be sold for 25 pounds ($42) each, and sent to the buyers after Armistice ceremonies in November.


