Girton War Memorial

The Girton war memorial was constructed of Portland stone, and was unveiled in 1919. The monument is square in plan, and comprises a tapered obelisk on a pedimented plinth, with a stepped base bounded by a low wrought-iron rail. The memorial is surrounded by one course of cast-concrete paving slabs. The inscription on the east elevation of the plinth and base reads: ‘IN GRATEFUL MEMORY / OF THE MEN OF GIRTON / WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES / IN THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM / DURING THE GREAT WAR / 1914-1918 / WHOSE NAMES ARE HEREON INSCRIBED / BY THE LONG ROAD THEY TROD / WITH SO MUCH FAITH AND SUCH DEVOTED / SELF SACRIFICE AND BRAVERY / WE REACHED VICTORY AND PEACE / GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS / THAT A MAN LAY DOWN HIS LIFE / FOR HIS FRIENDS’. The south and north elevations are each inscribed with ten names of the fallen of the First World War (1914-18). The west elevation is inscribed: ‘ALSO THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR / LIVES IN THE WORLD WAR / 1939-1945’ followed by eleven names of the fallen of the Second World War (1939-45). The monument stands to the east side of the Cambridge Road in Girton village, to the south of the Church of St Andrew (Grade II*).