History of Canadian cemetery

After the outbreak of the First World War, Lady Astor opened the Cliveden estate for the recuperation of wounded servicemen and invited the Canadian Red Cross to build a military hospital on the grounds.

Using equipment sent from Canada, the Red Cross constructed the Duchess of Connaught Red Cross Hospital, which opened in 1915.

It was renamed No. 15 Canadian General Hospital in 1919.

The presence of a war cemetery in a private estate is unusual; the sunken Italian garden which now houses the cemetery was originally designed and landscaped by the 1st Viscount Astor in 1902.

It was excavated and lined with tufa rocks with fragments of Roman sculpture, symbolic broken pillars, and a large font.

During the war, the family gave permission for the garden to be adapted to serve as the final resting place for servicemen who died in the hospital.

The mosaic paving was replaced with turf and the graves were marked with plain stones recumbent on the graves, rather than the upright headstones that are familiar in other Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries.

Of the 42 burials dating from the First World War, the remainder of the burials, alongside the 28 Canadians and two Americans, are those of British, Australian and New Zealand soldiers and airmen who died while undergoing treatment in the hospital.

Their names are inscribed on the bronze wall behind the font.

The bronze sculpture opposite the marble screen is the work of the famous Australian sculptor, Sir Bertram Mackinnel, and was installed in the cemetery during the First World War.

In 1940 the Canadian Red Cross rebuilt and enlarged the existing hospital, renaming it the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital.

During both world wars, Joyce Grenfell, Lady Astor’s niece and a celebrated actress and singer, entertained wounded men on the grounds of the estate.

After the war, the buildings were given to the British state and served as a general hospital with a maternity unit and centre for research into rheumatism in children.

There are just two burials in the cemetery dating from the Second World War – one Canadian, one British.