Ainstable War Memorial Lych-Gate

Lych-gate, 1934, by Mr J F Martindale.

MATERIALS: coursed quarry-faced Lazonby Fell red sandstone walls, supporting an oak timber frame, and a slate clad hipped roof, with ridge tiles. Borrowdale slate memorial tablet.

PLAN: rectangular in plan, with the ridge set at a right angle to the pedestrian passageway beneath.

DESCRIPTION: the lych-gate forms the churchyard entrance in its southern boundary wall. It has a symmetrical composition with a chamfered Tudor-arch timber-framed entrance passage, flanked by masonry carrier walls, with flat topped rough-hewn quarry-faced coping stones and quoins. Each carrier wall has a shallow u-plan, the projections in the front elevation forming gate posts for a pair of ledged and braced palisade gates, with a looped wrought-iron latch and strap hinges. A low wall with flat coping stones attached to the right (eastern) carrier wall extends forwards and terminates in a post with a pyramidal stone finial. A memorial tablet recording the ten names of the fallen is attached to the inside face of the left (western) carrier wall, and it has a rectangular space cut into it, where a name has been removed. The plaque is inscribed: - IN MEMORIAM / 1914 - 1918 / (names in two columns) / THEY HAVE PASSED "OUT OF THE WARFARE OF THIS WORLD INTO THE PEACE OF GOD". The timber frame is carried on moulded sill plates, with a square post at each corner supported by a moulded strut, with the space between occupied by a pair of wall posts. A pair of wall plates and the two tie beams form a frame that carries the common rafter roof with exposed rafters. The rear elevation matches that of the front, apart from there being no gates.