The War That Didn’t End: A Visit to Bodelwyddan’s Canadian Graves

By Ian Kydd Miller — August 2008

The rows are quiet now. Neatly kept, evenly spaced, each headstone bearing the maple leaf and a name. But the story they tell is anything but orderly.

I came to St Margaret’s Church in Bodelwyddan, North Wales, expecting beauty. The so-called Marble Church is a marvel of Victorian ambition—its spire piercing the sky, its limestone glowing even under cloud. But what held me wasn’t the architecture. It was the field of Canadian war graves beside it. Over 80 headstones, most from 1918 and 1919, long after the guns had fallen silent.

These men had survived the war. They were stationed at Kinmel Park Camp, just a few miles west, waiting to go home. But home didn’t come.

The Forgotten Chapter

After the Armistice, 15,000 Canadian troops were moved to Kinmel Park to await repatriation. The war was over, but the waiting was not. Supplies were short. Promises were broken. The Spanish Flu swept through the camp, killing dozens. And then came the Kinmel Park Riots—a brief, violent eruption of frustration in March 1919.

Five Canadian soldiers died in the unrest. Four are buried here. Their names etched in stone, their stories mostly untold.

A Different Kind of Witness

I walked the rows slowly. Not as a historian, not as a tourist—but as a witness. Photography teaches you that presence matters. That the frame is a form of respect. And here, the frame is heavy with silence.

These graves are not about heroism in battle. They’re about the emotional residue of war—the waiting, the sickness, the disillusionment. They remind us that peace is not a switch flipped by treaty. It’s a process. A reckoning.

Why It Matters

In an age of spectacle, it’s easy to forget the quiet places. But Bodelwyddan is one of those places that holds history gently. No fanfare. No dramatics. Just rows of names and the ache of unfinished journeys.

I didn’t take many photos. Sometimes the best images are the ones you carry in your mind. But I left with a deeper sense of what it means to document—not just the visible, but the invisible. The stories that linger in the soil.

If You Go

• Location: St Margaret’s Church, Bodelwyddan, Denbighshire, North Wales

• Nearest Landmark: Kinmel Park Camp (now largely disused)

• What to Look For: Commonwealth War Graves headstones, central memorial, quiet symmetry

• What to Bring: Time. Respect. A willingness to listen.