Contalmaison Château Cemetery

Contalmaison is a village about 6 kilometres north-east of the town of Albert, south of the main road from Albert to Bapaume. The Cemetery is on the northern side of the village.

Contalmaison stood more than a mile back from the old German line and was the headquarters of the German units holding a large sector. It was the objective of the Tyneside Irish Brigade on 1 July, but the few troops who reached the village were captured or killed in front of its defences.

It was stormed by the 23rd Division on the 7 July, and some of the men taken four days earlier were released; but it was lost the same afternoon. It was not finally captured until the 8th and 9th Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howards) cleared it on 10 July.

The cellars of Contalmaison Château, which had been the German headquarters, were used by the British as a Dressing Station following the fall of the village.

Contalmaison was lost again in March 1918, but recaptured by the 38th (Welsh) Division on the evening of 24 August 1918.

The underground fortifications made by the enemy before 1916 played an important part in the defence of the village.

The cemetery was begun by fighting units on the evening of the 14th July, 1916, and used from September, 1916 to March, 1917 by Field Ambulances. Graves were added after the Armistice by concentrations from the battlefields of the Somme and the Ancre.