Coles Family and Winterbourne Down War Memorial

This is a First World War memorial, likely designed by F C Eden, erected in 1919 and subsequently expanded to include names from the Second World War and later. The memorial is constructed of stone and has a square footprint. It faces west and takes the form of a medieval lantern cross, standing upon a two-step base. The base supports a shallow plinth which sits above an octagonal socket stone; the upper section of this stone has been worked into a deep drip moulding. A weathered relief of the badge of the East Yorkshire Regiment is carved on the west face of the socket stone. The shaft is square at its base, featuring carved leaf decoration, and tapers to an octagonal section terminating in a lantern head set above an octagonal annulet. The lantern itself has four faces with traceried niches containing relief sculptures, depicting the Crucified Christ on the west face, the Madonna and Child on the east face, St George on the south face, and a weathered sculpture, possibly St James the Less, on the north face.

Dedicatory inscriptions are incised on the west face, commemorating members of the Coles family who died in both World Wars. The inscription across the north-west, west, and south-west faces of the socket stone reads “TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN PIOUS MEMORY OF JAMES HUGH COLES DSO LIEUTENANT COLONEL EAST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT WHO WAS KILLED IN ACTION NEAR WYTSCHAETE BELGIUM ON 25 APRIL 1918 AGED 33 YEARS AND GEOFFREY WILLIAM COLES WHO DIED 27 NOVEMBER 1915 AGED 28 YEARS NEMO SIBI NASCITUR.” Below, the west face of the plinth reads “REST ETERNAL GRANT UNTO THEM O LORD AND LET LIGHT PERPETUAL SHINE UPON THEM.” Further inscriptions on the top step of the base commemorate Flying Officer Denys Geoffrey Graeme Coles RAFVR and his crew, alongside local men who died in the Second World War. The names of local men who died during the First World War are recorded alphabetically around the south, south-east, east and north-east faces; the north face bears the inscription ‘OF THIS PARISH WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN THE GREAT WAR 1914 – 1918’. Finally, the north side of the top step includes an inscription honoring Denys Francis Parr Coles, father of Denys Godfrey Graeme Coles, who died in 1959.