Ball Haye Green War Memorial

A First World War memorial dating to 1922, designed by Mr W E Beacham and built by Thomas Grace and Sons of Leek, with plaques supplied by Messers Baxendale of Manchester.

PLAN: rectangular gate piers with narrower flanking walls, orientated north-east / south-west aligned with the road.

MATERIALS: Alderley Edge sandstone in ashlar to the arch, wall coping and quoins, vermiculated sandstone to the blocks in the walls. Bronze plaques.

EXTERIOR: the gate faces south-east to Ball Haye Green. It has two square columned gateposts with deep plinth bases. These support a segmental arch with an embossed keystone over which is a frieze bearing the inscription ‘PRO PATRIA’. The arch encloses a replacement iron gate and is flanked by short scroll-topped stone walls. The columns have a carved wreath below their stepped tops, the wreath on the southern contains the date ‘1914’, the northern wreath the date ‘1919’. Below the wreaths are bronze plaques each with a Tudor Rose embossed at the top. On the plaques below the roses are the inscriptions containing the names of individuals. The names are arranged alphabetically by surname with initials, and grouped into those who lost their lives, and those who served and returned. The inscription on the south column reads:

‘TO THE MEMORY OF THE / FOLLOWING RESIDENTS OF / BALL HAYE GREEN / WHO LAID DOWN THEIR LIVES / IN THE EUROPEAN WAR (26 names in two columns) / THEIR NAME LIVETH EVERMORE / AND/ IN HONOUR OF THOSE RESIDENTS / WHO SERVED THEIR COUNTRY (39 OF 167 names in three columns)’ To the north column, the word ‘SERVED’ is inscribed at the top, the remainder of the 167 names are in three columns below.