"the passing of an era"

The cathedral bells pealed for an entire hour, tolling not just one man's death but the passing of an era.

Harry Patch was 111 when he died two weeks ago, and his body was laid to rest Thursday after a memorial service here in the medieval city of Wells, in southwestern England.

But it wasn't for his longevity that hundreds of mourners lined the streets and gathered solemnly on the cathedral lawn under rainy skies. It was to honor Britain's last survivor of the trenches of World War I, the last man on these shores who bore firsthand witness to the blood-soaked conflict that forever changed Europe and the course of the 20th century.