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Remembered Today:

Moving a Town's Memorial


alfie

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My local town memorial was built after the Great War next to a new hospital built by local subscription. The hospital is now gone but the memorial still stands. Its a bit off the beaten track not in the centre of town where it should be. Who would you all suggest may have input on moving the memorial to a more prominent place where it belongs?

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If it is in England then FRIENDS OF WAR MEMORIALS and ENGLISH NATIONAL HERITAGE are interested parties. FOWM are at

http://www.war-memorials.com

The local authority will almost certainly want to be involved. Local newspapers may be helpful in getting the public support.

Aye

Malcolm

ps. not Nelson Lancs by any chance??

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moving the memorial to a more prominent place where it belongs?

Who says that is where it belongs?

It belongs where it was built, at the desire of the local community at the time.

What right have you to shift it?

In a way, this is similar to adding names to already existing memorials. It destroys the integrity of the original memorial as set up by a community. Names can be added in an addendum, which creates a further historic memento, but shifting the whole thing destroys the original idea, and its reason for being where it is.

When I saw the heading , I thought you were going to complain about a town council or similar wanting to shift a memorial for their own ends eg traffic flow.

This happened recently here and was stopped by the community, who did not want their memorial moved even though it still creates a traffic problem.

Don't shift it. Set up some sort of guide from other parts of town, and maybe brighten up the site of the memorial somehow, with a park or gardens, to make it an interesting place to go.

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One of the memorials I research was moved, by the local council, a few years ago. It was, probably, a nice quiet location for the little hamlet when it was erected but the passage of time meant that it was near the junction of two very busy roads. Impossible to hold a remembrance day service without grid-locking the traffic right across south Manchester. It was just stuck, almost behind a wall and out of view.

Council moved it a few hundred yards, making it more central to the current housing development. And it has it's own little grassed area around it, with seats. Another tick in the box for Stockport Council and its upkeep of memorials, IMHO.

This is it here

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It belongs where it was built, at the desire of the local community at the time.

What right have you to shift it?

Can't say I necessary agree with Christine on this one.............I think due consideration needs to be taken as to the suitability of its location which may have changed dramatically since the memorial was first erected....................I would use the Burlington Slate Quarry memorial in Kirkby in Furness as a prime example....................As a youth I came across this memorial as my parents lived in the village (actually in a hamlet situated right beneath the quarry slap heaps). When first built, the memorial was situated next to the Company Offices & railway track which ran from the main line up to the Quarry head. By the late 1970's all this was gone. The quarrying activities had been exhausted in this part of the quarry, the railway had disappeared leaving only a grassed over track, unusable by vehicles & rarely used by walkers as it led only into the quarry, which technically was private property. The buildings had also long gone, leaving only the foundations of a signal box & a rusted points changing lever. Also in the ensuing 70+ years the waste slate slag heaps had encroached within a few metres of the site & literally the only way to see the memorial was to stumble over it by 'trespassing' along the old railway line. It wasn't even visible from the public footpath which ran parallel to the old line........Due to this location it wasn't surprising that even some locals within the village were unaware of the memorials existence................The Company running the quarry took the decision (which I think was correct) to dismantle the memorial piece by piece (naturally it was made of Burlington Slate) & move it to outside the current company offices................Surely one of the purposes of a memorial is to invoke remembrance by those who view it........................If no one ever gets to see it, no one will remember.

Remembering

Addison Bell

Edward Greenhow

Mark Grigg

Thomas Heaton

Issac Hudson

John Shepherd

Lewthwaite Shaw

All employees of Burlington Slate Quarry who gave their lives during the Great War

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Who says that is where it belongs?

It belongs where it was built, at the desire of the local community at the time.

What right have you to shift it?

In several cases the original Memorial in a town ends up , after town developement, in an area which is unsuitable. Moving them to a place of more central importance is sometimes the only way.

Aye

Malcolm

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Will

Surely the Burlington Slate Quarry memorial was a private memorial for the quarry company employees who fell rather than a parish, village or town memorial which will most likely have been raised by Public Subscription.

If the quarry company of the day erected it on their land it would be theirs, and their succesors to do with as they wished.

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ps. not Nelson Lancs by any chance??

Ah Nelson. If anywhere ever had a better reason to move a war memorial, it's here (and they moved 2!).

For years it saddened me to see Nelson's memorial covered in graffiti, kebab wrappers, empty bottles and the rest of the refuge associated with "weekend revelry" ( ;) ) looking rather dejected and unloved at the end of the town bus-station. The local council also saw fit to grant permission for a taxi rank to stand in front of it, making it an outdoor waiting room!

Luckily, they saw sense (eventually) and moved it in front of the library. They also moved the memorial to the town's Boy Scouts from Victoria Park (a decidedly dodgy place after dusk), cleared it of grafitti and put it in pride of place next to the town memorial.

Dave.

(Malcolm - when you mentioned Nelson, were you thinking of the Reedyford Memorial Hospital, the whole building of which was the memorial? Unfortunately, this was demolished years ago, and now is a grassy area around two large roundabouts. No memorial from this building exists now.)

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(Malcolm - when you mentioned Nelson, were you thinking of the Reedyford Memorial Hospital, the whole building of which was the memorial? Unfortunately, this was demolished years ago, and now is a grassy area around two large roundabouts. No memorial from this building exists now.)

Dave,

The Hospital was what I was thinking about. It was erected by local subscription and my cousin, who livess in Nelson, still goes on about faeless officials demolishing what wern't theirs!!!!

Aye

Malcolm

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Dave,

is there a website or list of names for the Nelson Memorial? I was wondering if any of my relatives might be on it?

Peter

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Peter.

There are no names whatsoever on the Nelson Memorial.

The nearest thing I can think of is the book "They are not forgotten - First World War Memorials in Nelson Lancashire" a privately published and limited (to 100 copies) edition book that was released recently. (See my thread in the Doc.Repos. with the same title).

Dave.

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Will

Surely the Burlington Slate Quarry memorial was a private memorial for the quarry company employees who fell rather than a parish, village or town memorial which will most likely have been raised by Public Subscription.

If the quarry company of the day erected it on their land it would be theirs, and their succesors to do with as they wished.

Indeed.............but irrespective of this my argument is still the same.......the purpose of a memorial is to invoke remembrance by those who view it........................If no one ever gets to see it or it is used as a convenient urinal by the drunks at closing time surely it is better to move it to a location where its purpose is fulfilled.

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