In the spring of 1917, the battlefields of the Somme and Ancre were cleared by V Corps and a number of new cemeteries were made, three of which are now named from the Serre Road. Serre Road Cemetery No.2 was begun in May 1917 and by the end of the war it contained approximately 475 graves but it was greatly enlarged after the Armistice by the addition of further graves from the surrounding area, iand bringing in burials from smaller cemeteries in the area. There are now 7,127 Commonwealth burials of the First World War in the cemetery, mostly dating from the great Somme battle of 1916. The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.