Martinsart British Cemetery

Somme

Location Information:

Martinsart is a small village 4 kilometres north of Albert. The cemetery is on the south side of the village on the road (D129) to Aveluy. The cemetery is signposted in the centre of Martinsart.

Historical Information:

Martinsart was close to the Allied front line until September 1916, and again from March to August 1918.

Martinsart British Cemetery was begun at the end of June 1916, when 14 men of the 13th Royal Irish Rifles, killed by a shell, were buried in what is now Plot I, Row A. It was used as a front-line cemetery until October 1916 and again in September 1918, when bodies were brought in from the battlefields for burial by V Corps. After the Armistice, the cemetery was enlarged when more graves were brought in from the area north, east and south of the village.

There are now 488 First World War servicemen buried or commemorated in the cemetery. 155 of the burials are unidentified but special memorials commemorate six casualties believed to be buried among them. The cemetery is unusual in that the graves are marked by stones made from red Corsehill or Locharbriggs sandstone, rather than the more usual Portland stone.

The cemetery was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield.