Darwen War Memorial

First World War memorial. Erected 1921 by the Municipal Borough of Darwen. Bronze sculpture by LF Roslyn.

MATERIALS: Bronze statue on sandstone pedestal.

DESCRIPTION: The memorial stands on a paved five-stepped platform near the north-east entrance to Bold Venture Park (laid out 1889-1914), where it can be viewed to its greatest advantage against the backdrop of a lake surrounded by mature trees.

The memorial consists of a tall, square sandstone ashlar pedestal on a stepped base, surmounted by a statue of winged Victory standing on a globe, holding a laurel wreath aloft in her left hand and an olive branch in her right. The pedestal has a deep cornice, and a torus and cavetto moulding above the plinth. The front (south) face of the pedestal is inscribed: IN GRATEFUL / MEMORY / AND TO THE HONOUR / OF / OVER 1200 CITIZENS / OF / THIS TOWN WHO GAVE / THEIR LIVES IN THE / GREAT WAR / 1914 – 1918 / AND THOSE WHO DIED / IN THE WAR OF / 1939 – 1945. Above this is a carved relief of the Darwen Borough arms flanked by inverted torches.

The west, north and east faces have inset bronze reliefs of figures comprising, respectively, an infantryman, a nurse and a seaman, each panel with a bronze laurel wreath above and a carved inscription beneath: the soldier representing HONOUR, the nurse HUMANITY and the seaman FREEDOM. Dress and weaponry are depicted in detail.

The front face of the plinth is inscribed: LEST WE FORGET; the west: IS IT NOTHING TO YOU / ALL YE WHO PASS BY (a quotation from Lamentations 1:12); the north: THEY DIED NOT IN VAIN; and the east: THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE.

The sides and rear of the platform are enclosed by a series of short tapering posts, four to the sides and two to the rear, the terminal posts with carved lions. The intervening chains have been removed.

Darwen War Memorial was listed at Grade II in 1984. It stand within Bold Venture Park, a Grade II registered landscape.