Foundation
The cemetery was established in May 1915 for front line troops defending the area. The cemetery was used by the Royal Irish Rifles, the Durham Light Infantry and Canadian battalions.
The cemetery is in a dip behind a ridge that was the site of a wood. In the Spring Offensive of 1918, German forces pushed the front line on to the ridge, being moved back in July, before being swept away completely later in the year during the Hundred Days Offensive by the 6th and 33rd Divisions.
Of the 621 burials at the site, 292 are from Canada, 280 from the United Kingdom, 44 from Australia and 3 from New Zealand, in addition to two from Germany. The cemetery previously contained graves of a number of French soldiers, but these were concentrated elsewhere later.
The cemetery was designed by British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.
Read more about this topic: Ridge Wood Military Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery
Famous quotes containing the word foundation:
“A face is too slight a foundation for happiness.”
—Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)
“I desire to speak somewhere without bounds; like a man in a waking moment, to men in their waking moments; for I am convinced that I cannot exaggerate enough even to lay the foundation of a true expression.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The poet needs a ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, may restrain his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the people, supplies a foundation for his edifice; and, in furnishing so much work done to his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full strength for the audacities of his imagination.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)