Church Stretton War Memorial

A town war memorial, dedicated in 1920.

MATERIALS and PLAN: the limestone memorial takes the form of a Celtic wheel-head cross with tapered shaft rising from a rectangular base with sloping upper surface. The base is encased by inscribed marble plaques to its sides and upper surface. The limestone platform is flush with the surrounding grass and there is a low railing of late-C20 date to all sides. The memorial is set to the north-west of the town centre, on rising ground on the lower slopes of Bodbury Hill.

The south face of the monument has Celtic interlace decoration to the cross head, arms and upper shaft. The lower shaft has a sword carved in relief and cross and arms have cable mouldings to their edges. The north face of the cross is similar, with interlaced decoration to the upper body of the cross, but the panel to the lower body of the cross shaft is here inscribed ‘FORGET NOT / THE MEN / OF / CHURCH / STRETTON / WHO FOUGHT / FOR GOD / KING / AND COUNTRY / IN THE / GREAT WAR / 1914 – 1919 / AND IN / THE SECOND / WORLD WAR / 1939 – 1945’. The flanks of the cross are blank. The base is inscribed on its south face with the words ‘INSCRIBED ARE THE NAMES / OF THOSE WHO GAVE / THEIR LIVES’, and the flanks and north face bear names of the fallen, as do the marble plaques attached to the sloping upper surfaces of the base.

This List entry has been amended to add sources for War Memorials Online and the War Memorials Register. These sources were not used in the compilation of this List entry but are added here as a guide for further reading, 19 January 2017.