The village was an important point in the German defences in July, 1916. It was taken by the 2nd Royal Scots Fusiliers on the 30th July, but the battalion was obliged to fall back; and it was again entered for a short time by the 55th (West Lancashire) Division on the 8th August. On the 18th August it was reached by the 2nd Division, and on the 3rd September (in the Battle of Guillemont) the village was captured and cleared by the 20th (Light) and part of the 16th (Irish) Divisions. It was lost in March, 1918, but retaken on the 29th August by the 18th and 38th (Welsh) Divisions.

The 20th Division erected a Memorial at the cross roads 450 metres East of the village; which has now been replaced by a permanent monument near the same spot; and a permanent Memorial to the 16th Division has been erected between Guillemont and Ginchy.

The cemetery (which was sometimes called Trones Wood Cemetery) was begun by fighting units (mainly of the Guards Division) and Field Ambulances after the Battle of Guillemont, and was closed in March, 1917. It then contained 121 burials, besides a number of regimental memorials. It was greatly increased after the Armistice by the concentration of 2,139 graves (almost all of July-September, 1916) from the battlefields immediately surrounding the village. It now contains the graves of 2,259 soldiers from the United Kingdom, one from Canada, one from Australia, one from South Africa and one from Newfoundland; and two German prisoners. Thirty-nine French graves have been removed to French cemeteries.

The unnamed graves in the cemetery number 1,523; and a few others are identified as groups but not individually. Special memorials are erected to eight soldiers from the United Kingdom, known or believed to be buried among the unnamed graves.

The cemetery covers an area of 8,344 square metres. It stands in cultivated country, near the head of the valley which rises to Guillemont from the West..

The only considerable cemetery from which British graves were brought to Guillemont Road Cemetery was
HARDECOURT VILLAGE FRENCH MILITARY CEMETERY. The village of Hardecourt-au-Bois was captured by French troops on the 8th July, 1916, and again by the 58th (London) and 12th (Eastern) Divisions on the 28th August, 1918. Five British Artillerymen were buried by their unit in the French Military Cemetery, in the middle of the village, in September, 1916; and in 1918 the 12th Division buried in the same cemetery 14 men of the 9th Royal Fusiliers and two of the 7th Royal Sussex.

Number of burials by Unit