Many of the men buried in the cemetery died as a result of the conditions in the trenches located in the Polygon Wood Sector of the Ypres Salient during the winter of 1917 to 1918.

After the war, a number of the dead interred in the area were brought to a location eight kilometres to the east of Ieper and re-buried in what was named Buttes New British Cemetery.

[2] The name is derived from an old butte, used as a rifle range by the Belgian Army prior to the war, which is on the western side of the cemetery.

[4] Buttes New British Cemetery contains the remains of 2,108 Allied soldiers, the majority of whom are unknown.

[3] Bodies continue to be occasionally discovered in the area and are often interred at the cemetery; five Australian soldiers whose remains were found in 2006 by a drainlayer were buried in October 2007 in a ceremony attended by the Governor-General of Australia, Michael Jeffery and the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark.