North Irish Horse - Ancre British Cemetery

In memoriam

Ancre British Cemetery

Ancre British Cemetery, Beaumont-Hamel, France. Following the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line in the spring of 1917, V Corps cleared the battlefield of 1916 and created a number of cemeteries, of which Ancre British Cemetery was one. There were originally 517 burials, but after the Armistice the cemetery was greatly enlarged when many more graves from the same battlefields and from smaller burial grounds were consolidated. There are now 2,540 Commonwealth casualties of the First World War buried or commemorated in the cemetery. Some 1,335 of the graves are unidentified, but special memorials commemorate 43 casualties known or believed to be buried among them. There are also special memorials to 16 casualties know to have been buried in other cemeteries, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire.

Two men of the North Irish Horse, Private W. McClelland and Private R. Ross, are buried here. The location of their graves is shown on the CWGC cemetery plan below.

Ancre