spike10764 Posted 26 June , 2005 Share Posted 26 June , 2005 Whilst out taking photos in the Alston area of Cumbria, I came across some WW1 memorials which were placed at road junctions or corners, on the outskirts of towns or villages. This one is the Nenthall Memorial on a corner of the A689 Alston to Nenthead road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spike10764 Posted 26 June , 2005 Author Share Posted 26 June , 2005 A close up of the inscription Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spike10764 Posted 26 June , 2005 Author Share Posted 26 June , 2005 A picture giving an idea of how it is sited. Is this unusual, it seems a bit out of the way(the centre of the village is some distance away) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spike10764 Posted 26 June , 2005 Author Share Posted 26 June , 2005 Alston War memorial, on the A686/A689 junction on the western side of the town Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spike10764 Posted 26 June , 2005 Author Share Posted 26 June , 2005 The inscription closer up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Robertson Posted 26 June , 2005 Share Posted 26 June , 2005 Spike, I'be passed through Alston many times (the Hartside Fell road being one of the premier bike nutter's roads in Britain) but I've never spotted the memorials you've listed. Thanks for that - I'll have to look out for them next time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spike10764 Posted 27 June , 2005 Author Share Posted 27 June , 2005 Spike, I'be passed through Alston many times (the Hartside Fell road being one of the premier bike nutter's roads in Britain) but I've never spotted the memorials you've listed. Thanks for that - I'll have to look out for them next time. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You'll recognise this view then Derek -taken this Saturday on a clear sunny day with all Cumbria spread before me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andigger Posted 27 June , 2005 Share Posted 27 June , 2005 Great pictures Spike. I am curious about the placement of the memorials too. Way back when, was the road junction (aka intersection) as un-walker friendly as it appears today? I was thinking at the time there may have been more people who would have passed it and it has fallen victim to the road over time. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swizz Posted 27 June , 2005 Share Posted 27 June , 2005 I agree - great photos! Maybe the monuments were intended to represent men from a larger area than just the village? I know of a couple of examples where the monument to commemorate the dead from an area was placed by a roadside rather than in one of the villages nearby. Although the inscription in the picture doesn't really bear this out. Just a thought! Swizz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaeldr Posted 27 June , 2005 Share Posted 27 June , 2005 Alston is reputedly the highest market town in England and certainly eighty years ago the roads in that area were much more important to the populous and represented a vital passage across the fells at the northern end of the Pennine chain. Somewhere in that splendid panoramic view must be Appleby which was famous for its horse fair to which gypsies came from all over the country to buy and sell horses. It’s a year or two since I was last in that area; is Nenthall a hamlet or an estate ie a group of farms? Regards Michael D.R. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMcNay Posted 27 June , 2005 Share Posted 27 June , 2005 Could these memorials be in a similar situation to the one at Newmains in Lanarkshire? It used to be situated next to two houses on the pavement, but the town has developed since, buildings have been demolishged, the road has been widened and now the memorial is situated in the middle of a roundabout. Perhaps these roadside ones were originally situated in a prominent place, but time has moved on and they remain where they were. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spike10764 Posted 28 June , 2005 Author Share Posted 28 June , 2005 It’s a year or two since I was last in that area; is Nenthall a hamlet or an estate ie a group of farms? Regards Michael D.R. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Michael- Nenthall is a small hamlet approx 150 metres west of this sharp bend in the A689. The setting of this memorial is sufficiently in period( the stone of the walls doglegged around it and the stone of a nearby derelict cottage) to make me think it was intended to be where it is. DMCNay-( sorry to be formal-but I don't know what the D stands for) The roads are not the widest now, so it's difficult to imagine either memorial as being swallowed up by development. Andy- The junctions probably were not as walker unfriendly as today, so I think your theory is correct. I can't see the roads being widened a lot since the memorials were erected, but I can see the traffic has increased dramatically along these roads. I don't know myself, but I did wonder if perhaps these memorials were the focus of a Remembrance Day March. You know, a sort of close the road it's time to remember type of thing (what better tribute and reminder of the debt owed in an area where road communications are vital and always have been). As for the view from Hartside Top on a sunny day- it's one of the few times as a Cumbrian you can feel ..........EEh it's grand to live here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaeldr Posted 2 July , 2005 Share Posted 2 July , 2005 Spike, Many thanks for the map ref With luck and a following wind, in November I will join an old friend for a jar or two at a watering hole on the B6277 and it will be a very small diversion to take a look at Nenthall; thanks again Regards Michael D.R. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Morgan Posted 2 July , 2005 Share Posted 2 July , 2005 If my old mate Spike doesn't mind me adding a couple more roadside memorials, here is one beside the A3052 road at Rousdon, Devon. Such memorials don't always look like memorials. With the word "Rousdon" in large letters, this one looks at first like a village name-marker or a one-time water-fountain. In fact, it commemorates the thirteen workers from the Rousdon Estate who died in the war and doubles as a milepost - it is situated at a road junction and the names and distances to neighbouring villages are carved into the other three sides. Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Morgan Posted 2 July , 2005 Share Posted 2 July , 2005 "Death is Swallowed up in Victory". The rather neglected little memorial in the village of Swyre, Dorset, which stands on the busy B3157 road between Bridport and Weymouth. It bears the names of just six men from the village who died in the Great War, but it has a link to the deaths or wounds of millions. At the nearby road-junction is a signpost pointing to the village of Puncknowle (pronounced "Punnel") which is just three-quarters of a mile away. One of the former residents of the Manor House, next to the church, was Sir Henry Shrapnel, who invented and gave his name to the devastating Shrapnel fragmentation shell, first used in the Crimean War and fired by the million in the Great War. Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Broomfield Posted 2 July , 2005 Share Posted 2 July , 2005 Interestingly, we have at least two wayside memorials near me in the Southampton area. At Shawford (not far from Winchester) is one overlooking the M3, and there is another near Wickham. Both of these commemorate men - not locals - who were encamped in the Winchetsre area on their way to the docks at Southampton, and who consequently marched through these roads on their way to France. In addition, near Twyford, on the Twyford /Morstead road, is another to the 2nd Line Battalions of the County of London Regiments who were encamped in the area under training in the early 1916 period. If I can work the technology I'll try a photo some time (though southern Hampshire ain't as nice-looking as Cumbria, I'm afraid). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spike10764 Posted 4 July , 2005 Author Share Posted 4 July , 2005 To complete my collection of pictures from my "Sunday out in Cumbria", here is the Bewcastle Memorial- it is not strictly "roadside", but situated in the churchyard nearby the road. Bewcastle is a hamlet about 15-20 miles NW of Carlisle near the border with Scotland. The pictures were all taken (Alston Nenthall and Bewcastle) as an aside to photos for the BWMP of wargraves in these town and villages. Bewcastle Memorial Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spike10764 Posted 4 July , 2005 Author Share Posted 4 July , 2005 Other side view- Bewcastle Memorial Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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