Village War Memorials

This weekend we remember the fallen from two world wars, most of you will see on the TV the Queen and Royal Family paying their respects at the Cenotaph in London but that act will be repeated through out the country at towns and villages through out the country. This week I will show you a few of the smaller memorials from  round places I have been, some are local to me others further away but they all will have on thing in  people standing in two minuets silence  at 11 am on Sunday morning.

I'll start with this one which is at a church called St John-In-Bedwardine
in  Worcester, it commemorates the fallen from that parish.

 A little furtehr away in Wales a small church called St Mary's Llanfreddy you can see this memorial in the church porch

At Bovingdon Tank Museum this wall commemorates those who dies on operation since 1945.

This Lych gate is the memorial to the fallen from the village of Nettlebed

On the wall either side

you can see the names of the local men who died.

Sutton Courtneay has this large memorial by the village green in front of the church

 The memorial on the left is in the village of East Hendred and on the right is the one in Dorchester on Thames

These two are in the villages of Peppard and Steadhampton and are in the churchyards.

Another memorial can be seen in Reading outside St Giles Church and is another to the men who fell from the parish.

In Albury church you can see this memorial

At Harwell church these beautiful wooden memorials can be seen 

And in the village by the almshouses is another more prominent one, on the right is another war memorial you can see in Drayton St. Leonard

At Kelmscott church this memorial to Frank & Henry Hayes can be seen beside the church pulpit

 I'll leave you with this one in St Mary's Church Cholsey like many other villages in the country it was hard hit with the loss of so many of it's young men. On Sunday they will be remembered.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

War Memorials

Most places I have visited have a war Memorial to remember the dead of the two wars. Some villages have a small one others are quite elaborate but every year on remembrance day  people gather and remember those who were lost and lay poppy wreaths.  There were few villages that escaped and they are known as Thankful villages there were 52 in all and 14 of them were doubly thankful as they lost none in the second war either.

This one of a first world war soldier is in New Radnor Wales. Wales lost a lot of it's men in the first war.

Llandrindod Wells a lager market town has one as magnificen

Other villages in the UK tend to have a more simple memorials  like these at Harwell and Dorchester on Thames in Oxfordshire

 Garieston in Scotland has it's Memorial on he seafront

Reading which is now the County Town of Berkshire has two different memorials
The Lion is called the Maiwand Lion and is dedicated to men from the Berkshire Regiment who gave their lives at the Battle of Maiwand in Afghanistan  1880 The plain white one is dedicated to the dead of the two wars.

This is another memorial which is in Berinsfield near Dorchester in Oxfordshire which is dedicated to airmen from Mount Farm photo reconnaissance squadron which were based there in the second war.  

I will leave you with this one in Wallingford market place and will bring you another blog on war memorials at a later date.