Street Shrines

[kevin]

Pals

Reading my local Evening paper there is apiece about WW1 War Shrines in Middlesbrough, does anyone have any further infomation about these street shrines and did there occur in any other Towns?

Regards Kevin

[Steven Broomfield]

Cheltenham, I believe, had memorial plaques on each street. I might be wrong, but something tells me that.

[Roxy]

Broomers,

Any particular streets in 'Nam?

I should really go Christmas shopping for the wife and this may be the excuse I need to get me out the house! I'll post any results.

Roxy

[Clive Maier]

War shrines were common in the streets of British towns and cities. They began to spring up in 1916, when the terrible toll of The Somme finally brought home to people the enormity of the war. At first it was a grass-roots initiative with improvised shrines. Some were not much more than a notice board with handwritten roll calls of the serving and the dead, perhaps supported by a table bearing floral tributes. The idea caught on so rapidly that a commercial model was available by August 1916. It cost 6s 6d and embodied the triptych principle that became one of the most common shrine designs. The movement was rapidly adopted by the churches. Shrines served as a focus for remembrance until permanent memorials were erected as a final and definitive record, mostly in the early 1920s. At that point or in the ensuing years most shrines must have been broken up. Some survive, usually in churches or associated sheds and lofts.

[WhiteWolf]

Cheltenham, I believe, had memorial plaques on each street. I might be wrong, but something tells me that.

Hi Steven

Have you any details?

I work in Cheltenham and I could pop out one lunchtime and take some pictures.

Andy

[Terry Carter]

They had these street shrines in Birmingham too. My mother, born in 1928 and grew up in Small Heath, remembers the one at the end of her street when she was a child.

Terry

[joseph]

Hull had literally hundreds of them not many streets or residential areas didn't have one, three are still there. Only one in its original position the other two moved slightly because of building work. Eton Street is on the wall of a Chinese take away, not a good photo but will give you an idea.

Regards Charles

[tintin1689]

The Abbey Parish in St Albans, Herts had one in every Street and only two are no longer there. They are well made stone plaque type things - often with a small ledge or holders for flowers.

There was a book published on them which detailed their design and construction and the stories of the men listed on them. The Herts libraries have a copy.

When the HLI Depot was in operation at Maryhill Barracks in Glasgow there were around 18 such street memorials in the City that it kept a paternal eye on (sending wreathes, buglers etc), but I understand most disappeared in re-development projects.

In the Protestant Martyrs Church in Edge Hill, Liverpool there is a much more modest street memorial, a little iron plaque with a handful of names which was saved from a small street when it was demolished. Some poorer neighbourhods could not even afford this and had like a notice board - which would obviously not stand the test of time.

[roel22]

I wonder if any of those lost shrines somehow have survived. And where.

A few years ago I found the marble shrine of my great-grandfather, hidden away in a storage-room of the city archives. The building it was once part of was demolished somewhere in the 70's.

Good the shrine survived.

Too bad nobody will ever see it again.

Roel

[clive_hughes]

Hi there,

There was a wooden triptych-type shrine outside the gates of St.Davids Parish Church, Carmarthen during WW1, which had a ledge for family flowers etc. It was a complete local roll of service for that part of the town, not just for church members, so was being added to constantly.

After the war it was brought into the church porch, and a couple of years later was completely refurbished and hung inside the church itself on the wall near the entrance. A small ledge was added to take brass vases in which flowers or Remembrance poppies could be placed.

There are hundreds of names in alphabetical order on the panels (no other details), and those who died are marked by red stars.

In November ?2003 part of the church superstructure fell into the building, and it was closed for safety reasons. I believe (but am not sure, having moved well away from that area since) that the church has now been officially closed, and don't know what will happen to the memorial. The Parish's own roll of dead for WW1 is in Christ Church, about 200 yards away.

LST_164

[chris.wight]

Kevin, I started a thread, link, last year about a street shrine photo I had bought on Ebay. It turned out to be in East Dulwich.

[kevin]

Chris

Thanks for the link and what a fine example it shows, cannot post the example from my local paper as it was just a thumb print photo and did not scan very well.

Clive

Thanks for the background info of how there came about.

And thanks to the other pals for there input .

Regards and Thanks Kevin

[Steven Broomfield]

Sorry if I've stirred a mare's nest over Cheltenham. I could be wrong, but a mate of mine had a very good (and large, and expensive) book on Cheltenham's war dead, and I thought it mentioned street shrines.

I'll try and phone him.

[Patrick H]

I believe the street shrines were not "memorials" since they contained lists of all the men away fighting, not just those who had died. In Warley Essex I remember reading there were 6 such shrines posted aound the parish but I have no idea what happened to them

There is a thread on the forum somewhere

Patrick

[Tom Morgan]

There used to be a little street shrine in King Street, Wednesbury, commemorating the people who had been killed in a Zeppelin raid. I've only ever seen a photograph of it. It was rather like the kind of glass-fronted notice-board you used to see aound, with two small holders for flowers.

Tom

[Roxy]

Broomers,

Don't worry on my account. If you had had the information at your fingertips I was going to take the opportunity to check them out and post the results.

Roxy

[MACRAE]

There was in Lyon Street Glasgow Possilpark Area here is the thread on it

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/l...php/t28828.html

Dan