Newbury Town War Memorial

War Memorial, 1922.

ARCHITECT: the memorial was designed by Sir Mervyn Macartney, FRIBA, FSA, and the masons (for both phases) were Messrs T Thorn and Sons of Newbury. The bronze work was by Messrs Gardners and Sons of Bristol.

MATERIALS: the memorial shaft and the screen wall are Portland stone, and the base is limestone. The inscribed plaques are cast bronze.

PLAN: the memorial occupies a quadrant plot, separated from the north-east corner of St Nicholas’s churchyard by a curved screen wall adjoining the churchyard walls, and bounded from the street by iron railings. It rises from a stepped octagonal base.

DESCRIPTION: a 5m tall lantern cross which consists of an octagonal shaft topped with a Decorated gothic-style tabernacle with florid mouldings, and four canopied niches containing saints – Nicholas, Michael, George and Martin – with angel corbels. It has an octagonal pedestal upon a square base, on a base of four octagonal steps.

Behind it is a screen wall of two stages. The lower stage encloses the memorial from the churchyard and has 13 rectangular plaques, the central one of which is inscribed ‘IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO GAVE / THEIR LIVES IN THE GREAT WAR / 1914 – 1918’, with those to the sides listing the names of the 338 fallen men, and one woman.

An upper stage was added to the centre of the screen wall following the Second World War. It has seven panels, the central one of which is inscribed ‘IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO GAVE / THEIR LIVES IN THE WORLD WAR / 1939 – 1945’, with the names of 171 men on the panels to either side. The upper stage of the screen has iron rails to either side, joining it to the churchyard walls.

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, 10 January 2017.