My last post reflected on just a few of more than 400 memorials dotted around UK’s National Memorial Arboretum, memorials commemorating individual units of the armed forces, specific wartime incidents and sundry other causes and organisations. Today, I want to focus on two further memorials to be found at the Arboretum, particularly powerful pieces designed to make us all think hard about the nature and consequences of warfare.
Commemorating 306 British Army and Commonwealth servicemen executed during the First World War, “Shot at Dawn” is perhaps the most surprising of all the memorials. At first glance a sculpture in memory of men executed for – amongst other things – desertion and cowardice maybe sits uncomfortably alongside memorials to soldiers who died bravely while fighting for their country. But, of course, these days we know much more about the workings of the human mind than they did when senior officers were making life-and-death decisions at court martials over a century ago.
Based on our understanding today, there is good reason to believe that the behaviours leading to many of these executions were a result of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or Combat Stress Reaction (CSR). If this is so, many of those shot at dawn were not bad men. Rather, they were guys who had been psychologically traumatised by the horrors of war.
The memorial statue portrays a young British soldier blindfolded and tied to a stake, hands bound behind his back, awaiting execution by firing squad. A small disc, hanging from a chain around his neck, marks the point at which his executioners have been ordered to aim. Arranged in a semi-circle behind the condemned man are stakes, each bearing the name of a man executed in this manner during the First World War.
Artist Andy DeComyn based his statue on a likeness of 17 year old Private Herbert Burden, who lied about his age to get into the army and was later executed for desertion. It is a poignant piece of work, a reminder that simple words like “coward” or “deserter” do not necessarily do justice to the realities of life – and death – on the battlefield.
As such, it also brings to mind Michael Morpurgo’s “Private Peaceful”, an insightful novel for young adults – later made into a stage play, concert and film – that featured at its heart a battlefield execution. In my view, Private Peaceful and Shot at Dawn should both be compulsory viewing for those who seek to portray warfare as a glorious or noble activity.
Poignant in a different way is “Every Which Way“, a memorial to the evacuation of children from cities to the relative safety of rural Britain during the Second World War. The memorial remembers the evacuation of millions of children separated from their families during the conflict. It also pays tribute to the adults who made this huge logistical operation a success, including train and coach drivers, teachers, nurses, billeting offices, and the foster parents who gave the evacuees temporary new homes.
The artist responsible for “Every Which Way” was Maurice Blik, who was commissioned by the British Evacuees Association (BEA). It is an outstanding, emotionally charged piece of work.
Here’s what Blik had to say about his sculpture when it was inaugurated in 2017:
The title of the memorial was inspired by one of the members of the BEA who on seeing my initial scale model of the sculpture, exclaimed ‘That’s it exactly – we were going every which way’…With the design I hope to convey some of the confusion and anxiety felt by the child evacuees. This is not a straight forward line of children about to set off on a journey; … items of clothing are back to front and luggage is split open to symbolise families being torn apart.”
Source: Maurice Blik, writing in his booklet about the memorial and quoted in the Volunteer London Blog
I leave you with this thought: Blik’s sculpture is a powerful, brilliantly executed reminder that innocent people, including children, inevitably get hurt in wars. We shouldn’t need reminding, but the daily reports of suffering, destruction and death in Ukraine and the Middle East suggest otherwise. Have we, as a species, learned nothing? In 1969, John Lennon urged us all to Give Peace a Chance, and today his words seem more relevant than ever.
Next Sunday, 12 November, is Remembrance Sunday, when the UK reflects on the sacrifices made by men and women who have died in the service of their country. Services and ceremonies of remembrance will take place at locations up and down the country, including the National Memorial Arboretum in the county of Staffordshire.
The Arboretum opened in 2001, and exists to ensure that –
“the unique contribution of those who have served and sacrificed is never forgotten
the baton of Remembrance is passed on through the generations
there is a year-round space to celebrate lives lived and commemorate lives lost.”
I am, at heart, a child of the sixties, brought up in the era of the peace movement to the sound of Edwin Star reminding us that “War can’t give life, it can only take it away,” and John Lennon pleading with us all to “Give peace a chance“. I accept that warfare might sometimes be necessary as a last resort, the lesser of two terrible evils, but any attempt to promote or glorify it is, and will always be, anathema to me.
I therefore visited the National Memorial Arboretum earlier this year with a degree of trepidation, fearing it would be little more than a shallow, macho glorification of armed conflict, a misguided homage to the notion that “might is right”. As it happens, I had nothing to fear: taken as a whole, the memorials are broader in scope, more sensitive and more thought provoking than I had imagined. Indeed, some have little or no direct link to the military services.
More than 25,000 trees have been planted on the site, which was reclaimed from old gravel workings and measures around 150 acres (60 hectares). It currently hosts around 400 memorials to individual units of the armed forces, to specific incidents and to sundry other causes and organisations. Memorials come in all shapes and sizes, and in various materials including steel and bronze, as well as glass and stone.
The Armed Forces Memorial
The centrepiece is the Armed Forces Memorial, an imposing Portland marble installation upon which are engraved the names of around 16,000 servicemen and women who have died in the line of duty or been killed by terrorists since 1945. Inspired by monuments of prehistoric Britain, a 43 metres diameter stone structure sits atop an earth mound 6 metres high. Depressingly, there is space on the walls for another 15,000 names to be added.
The Polar Bear Memorial
The Polar Bear Memorial was the first memorial erected at the site, and was dedicated in 1998, three years before the official opening of the Arboretum. It’s a tribute to the 49th West Riding Infantry Division, who adopted their distinctive polar bear cap badge after service in Norway and Iceland in World War 2. Around its base are the badges of the regiments in the Division, and the towns liberated or defended by them. Inside the bear is a capsule carrying details of those who died, together with personal mementoes. Versions of the Polar Bear statue have been erected at towns liberated by them in World War 2.
The Submariner’s MemorialThe memorial resembles a submarine’s conning tower
Another thought-provoking memorial is that to the crews of submarines. The Submariner’s Memorial was designed by sculptor Paul Day. Its representation of a conning tower, through which a sailor gazes up longingly towards the sky, eerily conveys the sense of confinement that submarine crews must have felt every day.
The Clapton Orient MemorialSoccer boots are the clue to Clapton Orient’s game!
Some memorials, including the Clapton Orient memorial, hint at a fascinating story. Why, the casual visitor might wonder, do a soccer ball and a pair of soccer boots flank an obelisk commemorating members of the 17th Battalion Middlesex Regiment? The inscription gives the answer, telling us that “Clapton Orient were the first football league club to enlist en masse to serve king and country during the Great War.”
The club’s players enlisted in December 1914, serving in what became known as the Footballers’ Battalion. The inscription goes on to tell us that “Many [of the footballers] sustained wounds, and three of the club’s players made the ultimate sacrifice during the Battle of the Somme.” The memorial is based on an original, paid for and unveiled by Orient fans in 2011 at Flers, in the heart of the Somme battlefield.
Memorial to the Royal Army Medical Corps
It is not just members of fighting units who are honoured at the National Memorial Arboretum. One of the most striking sculptural works on display is a bronze memorial commemorating the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). Sculpted by Alan Beattie Herriot, it features a member of the RAMC carrying a wounded soldier over his shoulder. Since the foundation of the Corps in 1898, 29 medics have been awarded the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest and most prestigious decoration for military personnel in the British honours system.
Memorial recalling the Christmas Day truce, 1914
Another soccer-related memorial recalls the Christmas Day Truce in 2014, when British and German soldiers met in no man’s land to exchange gifts, take photographs and play impromptu games of football. For one day only these men decided to give peace a chance, and although hostilities resumed soon after, their action remains one of the most famous and inspiring encounters of the First World War. The memorial is based on a design by 10 year old Spencer Turner for the Football Association’s “Football Remembers” competition, and depicts a British and a German soldier shaking hands. Simple, but symbolic and very moving.
The Aguila Memorial to 21 Wrens lost at sea in 1941
It was not only men who gave their lives in the service of their country. The Aguila Memorial, carved from wood on a stone base, commemorates 21 members of the the Women’s Royal Naval Service (aka the WRNS / the Wrens) who were lost at sea in August 1941 when their ship the Aguila was torpedoed by a U-Boat. The Aguila was en route to Gibraltar where 12 of the Wrens were due to take up duties as cypher officers, and the other nine as wireless operators.
“Free Spirit”, in memory of more than 1,000,000 horses and mules used by the British Army during WW1
“Free Spirit” takes a very different look at the victims of warfare. Animals can be in the firing line too, and this bronze statue of a horse designed by Georgie Welch commemorates more than 1,000,000 horses and mules used by the British Army during the First World War. Most did not survive the ordeal.
Celebration of “the Bevin Boys”Celebration of the Women’s Land Army and Timber Corps
One of the notable features of the National Memorial Arboretum is that it recognises wars are fought and won on the home front, as well as on the battlefield. One memorial, for example, commemorates the Bevin Boys. These were young British men conscripted to work in coal mines between December 1943 and March 1948, to increase the rate of coal production, which had declined through the early years of the Second World War.
Another memorial marks the contribution of the Women’s Land Army and Timber Corps, and rightly so: over the course of the two World Wars over 240,000 “Land Girls” and “Lumber Jills” produced desperately needed food and timber for the war effort.
The National Memorial Arboretum is full of surprises, and gives the visitor lots to think about. Two of the most striking memorials commemorate soldiers who were executed on the battlefield during the First World War, and children evacuated from their city homes into the countryside to protect them from bombing during the Second World War. This post is already far too long, so I will write about these two very different, and very special, memorials next time.
*** *** *** *** ***
Musical postscript
Writing this post has inevitably led me to a period of sombre reflection. At such times I tend to find that music – particularly within the broad tradition of English folk music – is better able to capture the emotions engendered by the realities and consequences of armed conflict than mere words written on a page. With that in mind, I offer you links to two songs that mean a lot to me. I hope they speak to you too. Listen, and quietly weep.
“And the band played Waltzing Matilda” was penned by Eric Bogle, a Scottish-born Australian singer-songwriter. It describes the grim realities and consequences of war, and the short-sightedness of those who seek to glorify it. Here is Bogle singing his anti-war masterpiece:
As a noted apologist for the British Empire, Rudyard Kipling, the English poet, short story writer, journalist and novelist, is not the obvious composer of an anti-war song. Perhaps he didn’t regard “Soldier, soldier” as an anti-war song at all? I do, for it is a stark reminder not only of the brutal consequences of war for the combatants, but of the pain and suffering of those watching from afar as events unfold on the battlefield. Here Kipling’s words are sung by English folk singers Anni Fentiman and Brian Peters, to an arrangement by Peter Bellamy
Architects have a frustrating life, don’t they, forever constrained by the briefs and the budgets of their paymasters, always wondering how much more they could achieve if their clients would only interfere a bit less and pay a bit more. But just occasionally, when the stars are in alignment and the gods smile benevolently upon him, an architect is given a free hand to express himself.
At 61m (200ft) Giles church is Cheadle’s tallest building
Augustus Pugin was one such architect, and when the chains were removed he built his masterpiece, St Giles church in the Staffordshire town of Cheadle. Otherwise known as Pugin’s Gem, St Giles is a Grade I listed Roman Catholic church built in the Gothic Revival style. With a spire standing 61m (200ft) high, it is by some way Cheadle’s tallest building, and is – in my humble opinion anyway – absolutely spectacular.
Looking down the nave towards the altar
If you’re not from the UK you almost certainly have never heard of Cheadle. I’m guessing most Brits aren’t familiar with it either. This is a humble West Midlands market town of around 11,000 people. For hundreds of years the main industry in the Cheadle area was coal mining, but the mines have all closed now and the town’s main employer (JCB) makes mechanical diggers and excavators. It’s a remarkably unremarkable little place, and would be instantly forgettable were it not for the efforts of Mr Pugin.
The arches, walls and pillars are covered in decorative stencilling
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852), the son of a French draughtsman and designer, was a prodigiously talented and prolific architect whose output included the interior designs for the Palace of Westminster, and over one hundred churches and cathedrals. He also managed to find time to pen eight books on architecture and design before dying at the age of just 40, succumbing – it is believed – to the effects of syphilis that he first contracted in his late teens.
View across the nave towards the pulpit. To the right of the pulpit is the rood screen, intended to protect the altar from irreverent gaze! Above the rood screen is Christ on the cross, with figurines of Our Lady and St John on either side.
Pugin’s patron in the building of St Giles was John Talbot, the 16th Earl of Shrewsbury (1791-1852). In 1829, two years after Talbot succeeded to the title, Parliament passed the Catholic Relief Act, better known as the Catholic Emancipation Act, 1829. This important piece of legislation allowed Roman Catholics to become Members of Parliament and to occupy all but a handful of public offices at a stroke, overturning restrictions that had been in place for hundreds of years.
Shrewsbury’s principal residence was at Alton Abbey – which he renamed Alton Towers – just 6 miles (9km) from Cheadle. The Earl took a keen interest in the spiritual welfare of Catholics in the town, and, emboldened by the Catholic Emancipation Act, he engaged Pugin to build a church there. Pugin, himself a Catholic, had previously undertaken an architectural commission for Shrewsbury at Alton Towers, and had impressed the Earl with his contention that Christian (or gothic) art and architecture could be a powerful weapon in the re-conversion of England to the Catholic faith.
The pulpit is carved from a single block of stone and features images of four saints
It was a marriage seemingly made in heaven. The Earl had the money, Pugin had the creative talent and the pair of them shared a passionate commitment to the Roman Catholic faith. Cheadle’s Catholic population was modest in size, but Pugin’s design was the opposite: extravagant, exuberant and extraordinary.
When St Giles was consecrated in 1846, the service was attended by Bishops, Archbishops and overseas statesmen, as well as the great and the good from the world of architecture and design. Cheadle had never seen anything like it before, and probably never will again.
Between the arch and the roof is a Doom Painting, a representation of the Last Judgment.
When we visited St Giles last year, I didn’t know quite what to expect, but insofar as I had expectations, Pugin’s Gem exceeded them one hundred fold. It is a breath-taking creation, all the more so for being located in this small and otherwise insignificant Staffordshire town. To describe it as totally over the top does not adequately describe its impact on the visitor, but you probably get the general idea!
The altar and reredos are carved out of alabaster. On the front of the altar are angels playing musical instruments. On the reredos the angels hold torches and censers.
I can’t agree with Pugin that architecture alone is capable of inducing religious conversion: in the 21st century such views are either wishful thinking or a dangerous delusion, depending on your point of view. My own spiritual beliefs were utterly untroubled by his masterpiece, but St Giles church remains clear in my memory, monumental and magnificent, a vivid testament to what can be achieved by an architect unchained.
It’s easy to underestimate the impact canals had on the early part of the Industrial Revolution. Today, if they are not drained of water or choked by vegetation, they’re mostly used for leisure purposes only. It is hard to believe that, 200 years ago, they were central to the industrial miracle that transformed society beyond all recognition.
Smart, colourful barges show that the canal is now used for recreational purposes. But hidden amongst the trees to the far left of this shot are remains of limekilns, a legacy from the canal’s industrial past.
The Caldon Canal is a mere 18 miles (29km) long, and runs from Froghall in Staffordshire to Etruria in Stoke-on-Trent, where it joins the much larger Trent and Mersey Canal. Completed in 1779 it was built primarily to transport limestone, so it comes as no surprise that abandoned limekilns can still be found along its route.
Closer view of the remains of limekilns atConsall Forge
The kilns at Consall Forge, which stand 10m high and 50m long, are now clothed in vegetation. Back in the day, however, the view would have been very different. Raw limestone, quarried nearby, would be loaded at the top of the limekilns. Furnaces heated the rock and converted it into quicklime, an essential resource in the steelmaking process. The quicklime would then be removed at the bottom of the kiln and loaded onto barges for onward transportation to where it would be used.
“Bridge #50” across the Caldon Canal at Consall Forge, in the picturesque Churnet Valley. Built c1779.
The remains of more limekilns can still be seen at Froghall Wharf, and here too the serene surroundings make it difficult to fully appreciate how the place must have bustled with activity in its heyday. Froghall also boasts a handsome 19th century warehouse. This has been tastefully repurposed as a café catering for 21st century visitors who like nothing more than to replenish the calories they’ve burned off during their canal-side strolls with a hot drink and an enormous slab of cake!
Former canal-side warehouse at Froghall Wharf, now serving coffee and cake!
One of the undoubted highlights of the Caldon Canal, and perhaps more unexpected, is the Cheddleton Flint Mill Museum. There was a watermill on the site in 1253, and by the 1500s there were two, one to wash woollen cloth in a process known as fulling, and one to mill corn. When the canal was driven past the mills in late 18th century it opened up the possibility of new uses.
Limekilns at Froghall Wharf
The Caldon Canal passes through Etruria, which was – from 1769 – the home of Josiah Wedgwood’s ground-breaking pottery business. One of his highly successful products was “creamware”, which used ground, calcined flint to help achieve its distinctive light-coloured appearance. The mills at Cheddleton were converted to grind the flint Wedgwood needed, and the canal enabled its easy transportation to the potter’s Etruria factory.
Canal view next to Cheddleton Flint Mill
Now owned and run by the Cheddleton Flint Mill Preservation Trust, the site offers fascinating insights into a flint milling process that I was completely unaware of before our visit. It also preserves the miller’s cottage, which dates from the 1800s, shining light on a lifestyle so very different from our own.
Cheddleton Flint Mill
The cottage is dressed as a piece of living history. Recently washed laundry (sparkling white!) hangs drying in front of the range, which serves both as the cottage’s source of heat and a stove for cooking meals. Along the walls two dressers display cherished pieces of tableware, and the table in the middle of the room is laid ready for tea. The exhibit is totally convincing, and it’s easy to believe that the miller and his wife have just popped put for a few minutes, and will soon be back to carry on with their lives.
The miller’s cottage at Cheddleton Flint Mill
Cheddleton Flint Mill is just one of many fascinating points of interest along the 18 miles of the Caldon Canal which, although clearly short on length, is undoubtedly big on history. A visit (or two, or maybe even three) can be strongly recommended if you’re ever in the area!
We really enjoyed our visit to Ford Green Hall, a fine example of a timber-framed farmhouse built in 1624 on the outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent in the county of Staffordshire. Who wouldn’t appreciate such an iconic building, positively dripping with atmosphere, creaking at the seams with nearly 400 years of history? Such places are strangely comforting, aren’t they, islands of calm and stability amidst a raging ocean of rapid change. They seem timeless, as perfect and wonderful as the day they were first conceived all those centuries ago.
Rear view. The half-timbered black and white core of the building dates from 1624. The brick-built extensions to left and right were added about 100 years later.
But look a bit closer and you’ll quickly realise that it ain’t necessarily so.
When approaching Ford Green Hall the visitor’s attention is drawn to the picturesque timber-framed parts, which are plainly very old. And that’s why we’re here, isn’t it, to see some old stuff. We conveniently block out from our minds the fact that to either side of the building’s black-and-white core are two rather more modern and less attractive brick-built extensions.
Front view. The black and white projection towards the right of the hall is a gabled two-storeyed porch, added just a few years after the hall was first built. This extension is early evidence of the building’s dynamic history.
The plain fact is that by the early 18th century Ford Green Hall wasn’t meeting its owner’s needs, so around 1734 he added two new wings. To our modern eyes these wings are somewhat unsightly – perhaps even a little ugly – and serve only to disfigure the majesty of the half-timbered building to which they’ve been attached. Back in the day, however, the owner will have felt very pleased with himself for modernising an inadequate building that appeared to be stuck in the past.
Worse was to follow – from our modern, sentimental perspective – in the years that followed. Half-timbered buildings fell out of fashion to such a degree that the external timbers were covered up altogether, coated in stucco to disguise the hall’s 17th century origins. The name of the game was modernisation: out with the old and in with the new, and if you can’t get rid of the old altogether at least do the decent thing and hide it from view.
The Hall Chamber (first floor) was originally used as a bedroom, and at the time of Hugh Ford’s death in 1712 it contained 3 beds.
In the nineteenth century the long term owners of the hall – the Ford family – moved away, prompting a further decline in its fortunes. Divided first into three and later four cottages, which housed local coal miners, the building’s glory days appeared over until the local council stepped in.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council purchased the hall in 1946 and, following a major restoration – including removal of all the hideous stucco – opened it as a museum in 1952. They furnished is sumptuously, in the style of a 17th-century yeoman farmer’s house.
The Hall (ground floor) was the most important room of the house. Originally much of the cooking would have been carried out over the hearth in this room, and the family would also have eaten their meals here.
When the Council ran into financial difficulties (don’t they all, sooner or later?) in 2011, the museum faced closure. At this point the voluntary sector came to the rescue, with a charitable trust taking over its running. And they’ve done a good job: as far as we could see, when we visited a few weeks ago. Ford Green Hall is thriving once again despite the best efforts of local government and the Covid virus to throw spanners into the works.
This restoration project has done a great job of preserving a historic structure that would otherwise have perished. However it’s important to remember that what exists today doesn’t reflect the vision of the man who commissioned the building in the early 17th century, and gives few hints as to its varied history.
The Parlour (ground floor) was originally used as both principal bedroom and sitting-room.
When we visit Ford Green Hall, or any other historic building that has been restored for its heritage value, we are simply being treated to a snapshot in time. The true history of such places is always much more dynamic and complex than is apparent to the casual observer.
Now I'm 64 