Stowmarket Council School Memorial Drinking Fountain

The cast drinking fountain is large and highly ornamental, standing inside the War Memorial Gates to the Recreation Ground on Finborough Road. It takes the form of four bowls supported by a central pedestal with four lions one to each side. Scenes cast in relief decorate the pedestal and exterior surfaces of the bowls, including ponds with water-lilies and other plants. The bowl interiors are scalloped. From the intersection of the bowls a tapering pedestal rises to support an urn. The urn used to have four arms from which chains and drinking cups were suspended; the chains and cups, and two of the arms, are now missing.

Each face of this pedestal is ornamented with cast decoration including strips of foliage to each arris, scrolls and shells from which the water issued in each lower section, and depictions of swans and a heron in the upper sections of three of the sides. On the fourth side the dedicatory inscription reads: THIS DRINKING FOUNTAIN/ WAS PRESENTED/ TO THE TOWN OF/ STOWMARKET/ BY THE CHILDREN OF THE/ ADJACENT SENIOR COUNCIL/ SCHOOL IN MEMORY OF/ THOSE OLD SCHOLARS/ WHO MADE THE/ SUPREME SACRIFICE/ IN THE GREAT WAR/ 1914-18.

This List entry has been amended to add the source for War Memorials Online. This source was not used in the compilation of this List entry but is added here as a guide for further reading, 6 March 2017.