The cemetery is constructed over the former Schwaben Redoubt, a German strongpoint during the Battle of the Somme, which is why some of the headstones lie flat. Mill Road Cemetery was made during the spring of 1917, when the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg line allowed the battlefield to be cleared. At the Armistice, it contained 260 burials, but was then greatly enlarged when graves were brought in from the battlefields of Beaumont-Hamel and Thiepval and from smaller cemeteries in the area. The cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker.