The Parish War Memorial
The parish war memorial covers men either from or connected with East Barkwith, West Barkwith and Panton villages who fell during the first and second world wars. It is located within East Barkwith on the junction of the A157 and Torrington Lane.
The memorial is made from Portland stone, in the shape of a cross, mounted upon an octagonal plinth, which is raised on a three step base. It is surrounded by an octagonal area of concrete, which is in turn surrounded by gravel, flower beds and a chain-link fence.
The names of the fallen are inscribed upon the plinth.
The Fallen
A significant number of people associated with the parish were lost during the wars. For details of the fallen click below.
Introduction
The picture shows the memorial on Ascension Day, May 5th 1921, when it was first unveiled and blessed. Planning for the memorial had started following the end of the First World War and as a result of a public meeting at which support for the project had been voiced.
This webpage details the history of the war memorial from first discussion at a 1919 parish council meeting through to the current day, a story that has involved many individuals and which continues to bring large attendances to the annual remembrance services.
Planning and Erection of the War Memorial
In January 1919, following the end of the First World War, the subject of a war memorial was discussed at a meeting of the Parish Council. At that time East and West Barkwith were separate parishes, each with its own Parish Council. The chairman of East Barkwith Parish Council at the time was Rev. Joseph Ferry, and members included (amongst others) Dr Edmund Barry Denny, Elijah Brackenbury who ran a successful shop in the village (a Grocer and Drapers) and two members of the Duckering family (Ezra and William) whose business centred around the nursery and manure works off Panton Road.
It was decided to hold a public meeting to gauge the level of support for a memorial and to allow parishioners to voice their opinions. As a result of the public meeting, a committee was formed to manage the planning and work required. The committee consisted of Dr Edmund Barry Denny (whose son Robert Edmund had lost his life), Mr Elizah Brackenbury (whose son Harold had also been lost) and Mr W.E.Ranyard.
An offer had been received from Alderman Wallis, who had purchased land in the Turner Estate sale, to donate sufficient land to widen the top of the road from the station in order to make the corner safer. At a subsequent council meeting, Dr Denny highlighted the dangerous nature of the corner opposite the school gate (the junction of the A157 and Torrington Lane as shown in the photograph). It was decided to thank the Alderman for his offer and send a letter to Lord Heneage regarding the Torrington Lane corner. As a result Lord Heneage offered to donate land to enable improvement of the junction and it was agreed that part of the land would be used to site the war memorial.
The war memorial was erected in 1921 by Mr A Woodward, at a cost of £80. Kelly’s 1922 directory states that the memorial was erected by public subscription.
Unveiling and Blessing
On Ascension Day, May 5th 1921, a service was held to unveil and bless the war memorial. The service commenced in St Mary’s Church led by the Rev. J B Ferry (shown in photograph), then there was a procession led by the choir to the site of the wayside cross, which was then unveiled by Colonel the Honourable George Heneage, who gave an address.
Once flowers had been placed at the foot of the cross, the service continued, ending with The Last Post, The Reveille and God Save The King.
Caring for and Maintaining the War Memorial
During a Parish Council meeting held at the school on 27th January 1922, the council agreed to accept responsibility for maintaining the war memorial on behalf of the parish. As existing work on the memorial was not complete, it was agreed that the Memorial Committee should first manage that work to completion, prior to the council taking over the memorial from them. The council agreed to also take on the cost of the upkeep of the memorial.
The chairman subsequently reported that he had questioned the District Council regarding the Parish Council taking on the memorial and the associated costs. The clerk of the District Council had responded that the Parish Council could take over the care of the war memorial and also accept the gift of the ground on which the memorial was situated, and subsequently be justified in completing any associated works of maintenance.
On the 9th January 1924 the Parish Council were informed that the work of the War Memorial Committee was complete and the council resolved to take over its care. Later in 1932 it was decided that a seat should be placed behind the memorial for public use. The concrete base surrounding the war memorial was replaced during 1932-33.
At a Parish Council meeting on the 12th April 1939 it was decided to ask Mr Fred Flintham for a price for maintaining the war memorial. The price was agreed at the following meeting on the 1st May, and Mr Flintham asked to proceed. The cost of this upkeep was recovered from the Rural District Council (RDC). As West Barkwith was a separate parish but the war memorial included men from both parishes, it was agreed that a small payment would be made by West Barkwith towards the upkeep of the memorial.
For many years the general upkeep of the war memorial continued to be conducted by Fred Flintham, an ex-serviceman who for some of that time let the parish cottage. More intensive repairs to the concrete base, posts and seat were carried out by J G Foster and Son, under the Parish Council’s direction.
Addition of the Names of the Fallen After The Second World War
At a Parish Council meeting on the 24th August 1945 it was agreed to call a public meeting to discuss the addition of the names of the fallen to the war memorial. The addition was finally agreed and the names confirmed during a subsequent council meeting on the 11th March 1946.
The Parish Council at the time included:
Lucy Reeve (Chair)
John Frederick Brackenbury
Wilfred Henry Brackenbury
James Garrett
Robert Penrose
Herbert Poucher
Walter Patrick Roe
On the 15th April 1946, a council meeting held at the school, discussed a letter from Mr Stanison of Louth, who would carry out the work. It was agreed to also ask him to reinstate the concrete around the foot of the memorial. The Rector was asked to produce some suitable wording for the monument inscription. The work was reported as being complete during a meeting on the 15th April 1947, with the cost of £14 having been paid out of a war fund.
Maintenance After the Second World War
Following the war the war memorial continued to be looked after by Fred Flintham, with repair work being carried out by J G Foster and Son.
In 1948 the District Auditor raised a question over the cost of the memorial’s upkeep as it exceeded the 1d authorised rate and requested that the Parish Council take action to regularise this. A dance was organised to raise the necessary funds.
East and West Barkwith councils merged in 1949, negating the need for West Barkwith to pay a precept for their share of the memorial’s upkeep. Funds continued to be required to assist with the upkeep of the memorial and in 1950 Mrs Roe agreed to organise a whist drive each year to help secure them.
In October 1951 Mr J Garrett took over care of the war memorial from Fred Flintham, still for the cost of £3-3-0 per year, but by 1954 he was looking to resign. The Parish Council decided to start a subscription for addition funds and persuaded Mr Garrett to continue, with the pay being increased to £4-3-0 per year.
The routine work by Mr Garrett and the repair work by Foster and Son continued over the next few years as significant changes occurred in the village, including the long awaited connection to the electricity grid. This was soon followed on Friday 23rd October 1959, when the first electric street lights were switched on in East Barkwith, but despite these steps forward, the council minutes show complaints during 1963-4 regarding the “offensive” open sewers in Willingham Road, which when dykes flooded and overflowed into fields were a danger to cattle. Another issue was the village water supply which continued to experience low pressure and at times issued from taps, “a deep brown colour”.
In 1966 Mr Garrett was unable to continue looking after to memorial, and the work was taken on by Mr C French at a rate of £5-5-0. The following year Mr D Wright was asked to undertake the work at the same rate. It was noted by the Rev. A Simpson that the war memorial itself was in need of a clean.
By 1971 it was reported at a Parish Council meeting that the war memorial and its surrounds were in a poor state, and a sum of £10 plus the cost of plants, was offered to anyone who would take on its maintenance. In April 1972 the Parish Council agreed to approach Mr P Henman (Neuman?) to see if he would take on the maintenance, and in February 1973 he complained to the council regarding vandalism of the surrounds. The Parish Council discussed the possibility of moving the seat located near the war memorial because it attracted small groups of teenagers in the evenings.
By May 1973, the job of maintaining the surrounds was again being advertised, and in the meantime the work was taken on by one of the councillors, Mr George Kine, a Dairy Farmer at Ivy House Farm who at that stage had lived in the village for 35 years, serving on the council for 14 of those. In February 1974 it was agreed to plant red Floribunda roses in the war memorial surrounds and following this the council voted to pay George the sum of £18 for his work over the previous year.
Two years later, the 4th March 1976 Parish Council meeting was adjourned for fifteen minutes while the councillors inspected the state of the war memorial. They agreed that the fence, fence posts and flag pole should be re-painted, and the seat repaired. George Kine continued maintaining the war memorial until the end of 1979, for an annual payment of £30.
From January 1980, Mr H Noble (shown in photo above) started undertaking the war memorial maintenance and in the spring of 1982 the parish council chairman and councillors undertook the cleaning of the memorial themselves. That year the old rose bushes surrounding the memorial were replaced with bedding plants and the annual maintenance payment increased to £50 per year. In November there were instances of vandalism in the village which included the spraying of the war memorial with red paint.
In 1987 Holmes of Wragby supplied two new posts for the chains surrounding the memorial, which at that time was still being maintained by Mr H Noble. Mr Noble ceased to maintain the memorial in the Autumn of 1988, following difficulties with a notorious member of the parish council. The position was advertised for and in February 1989, Mr Hinchcliffe took on the work for no fee, with the council supplying plants and materials, and continued this through to the spring of 1994.
Photos were taken on the day the village school was closed in 1987. A service was held to mark the closing and a wreath was laid by Mr Ashley to commemorate the fallen that had attended the school.
Cleaning in 1992
In 1991 it was decided that the war memorial required cleaning again, and quotes were obtained from a number of companies including Leakes Masonry Ltd of Louth and R Grasty. The quotes obtained were for sizable sums of money and so Councillor Roger Greer agreed to chair a fund raising committee to raise money for the work.
In 1992 the Parish Council arranged for Leakes’s Masonry Ltd of Louth to clean the war memorial at a cost of £325, which following some difficulties, was eventually completed by the end of the year.
New Base in 1992
Also in 1992, concern was growing regarding a widening crack in the concrete base of the memorial. A quote was obtained from builder, Neil Foulston, who at the time was carrying out working on the village hall roof. Following agreement, he stripped out the existing base and replaced with a grano base, assisted by Chris Wilson and D Griffiths.
Maintenance Between 1994 and 2002
Following Mr Hinchcliffe (see pihotograph) ceasing to maintain the war memorial in spring 1994, the work began to be carried out by a number of parishioners, including Mr & Mrs Tyson, Mr Martin, Mr R Greer, Mr C Brown (who often supplied the plants) and Mr Griffiths. By 1998 Yvonne Bryson is also recorded as helping.
In 1999, Mr & Mrs Tyson (Ernie and Margaret) had to stop helping maintain the memorial surrounds due to ill health. Yvonne Bryson, assisted by Chris Wilson, planted the bulbs around the war memorial. In the autumn, refurbishment work organised by Chris Wilson, was carried out on the chains and posts surrounding the memorial.
In August 2001. Mrs Drury and Mrs Bull agreed to take on maintenance of the memorial surroundings.
Maintenance Following the 2002 Refurbishment
Councillor Chris Wilson continued to organise the planting within the memorial borders each year, assisted by other residents such as Mr & Mrs Tyson who helped repaint the surrounding posts and regularly watered the plants.
On the 22nd May 2005 at 3.30pm a vehicle (car) collided with one of the corner posts, the post had to be reinstated as soon as possible to ensure a level of protection around the memorial. The post was strong enough to deflect the vehicle away from the Memorial.
Addition of Missing Names in 2014
In 2014 following the establishment of a local history group within the parish, the history of the war memorial was researched, along with those named upon it. Over the years, a couple of additional names had been identified as casualties who were missing from the memorial, however as the research progressed, aided by access to recently computerised records and the ‘big data’ search capabilities of modern computing, a growing list of men from the parish who had fallen during the First World War emerged. By the time the research had been completed, the names of an additional thirteen men from the parish had been identified and verified.
Two of these men were from Panton, and so would not originally have qualified for inclusion on the Barkwith war memorial, but seeing that Panton did not have a memorial of its own and was now part of the parish, the Parish Council voted to include these men on the Barkwith memorial with a panel denoting that they were from Panton.
It was agreed that the names of Albert Russell and William Creamer would not be added. Although Albert had served in the First World War, he was not actually killed during the war, although it could be argued that his death in 1920 due to the ship he was working on hitting a stray mine left over from the war, was still as a result of the war. In William’s case it was felt that he couldn’t be included at that time because he had not been born in Panton and no evidence could be found that he had ever lived there for any extended period of time, although his wife Margaret was listed as living there on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s website.
Just prior to the 2014 Remembrance Day service, the names were added to the memorial by local stonemason Steve Andrews based in South Willingham. The work was paid for by the Parish Council.
The names added were:
EDWARD HATTON
GEORGE BEMROSE
HERBERT BALDOCK
CHARLES BLANCHARD
GRICE CRAWFORD
HERBERT OVERTON
GEORGE HUBBARD
ARTHUR WILLIAMS
HORACE HATTON
WILLIAM BLANCHARD
ALBERT RUSSELL
WILLIAM LAWE (Panton)
ARTHUR BRADLEY (Panton)
During the well-attended Remembrance Day service, led by Mary Jordan, the names of the fallen were read out and a minutes silence observed.
In addition, on the 1st July 2006 a special remembrance service was held at the war memorial to commemorate Somme Day. A photo of the memorial was subsequently used in a magazine article about Somme Day.
On Sunday 3rd August 2014 a service was held in St Marys Church to commemorate the Battle of the Somme, which was concluded with an act of remembrance at the memorial where the names of the fallen including the new additional ones were read out.
Wreath Layers over the years
Layla Bollan
Tristan Wilson
Teyla Warren Wilkinson
Juliet Warren Wilkinson
Ken Rushby
Colin Farman
Ken Hinchcliffe
Helpers over the years
Yvonne Wilson
Grace Clark
Maxine Gibson
Grace Clark
Yvonne Wilson
Grace Clark
Alice Burnett
Elsie Kirk
Yvonne Wilson
Grace Clark
Alice Burnett
Grace Clark
Elaine Greasley
Barbara Walker