Spalding War Memorial

Coordinates: 52°47′0.5″N 00°08′57.4″W / 52.783472°N 0.149278°W / 52.783472; -0.149278
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Spalding War Memorial
United Kingdom
For servicemen from Spalding
killed in the First World War
Unveiled9 June 1922
Location52°47′0.5″N 00°08′57.4″W / 52.783472°N 0.149278°W / 52.783472; -0.149278
Designed bySir Edwin Lutyens
IN LOVE AND HONOUR / OF THOSE WHO / GAVE THEIR LIVES / FOR THEIR COUNTRY / IN / THE YEARS OF WAR / MCMXIV – MCMXIX / THIS MEMORIAL IS RAISED / IN THEIR HOME / BY THE MEN AND WOMEN / OF / SPALDING
Listed Building – Grade I
Official nameSpalding War Memorial
Designated20 November 1975
Reference no.1064002

Spalding War Memorial is a

Barbara McLaren, whose husband and the town's Member of Parliament, Francis McLaren, was killed in a flying accident during the war. She engaged Lutyens via a family connection and the architect produced a plan for a grand memorial cloister surrounding a circular pond, in the middle of which would be a cross. The memorial was to be built in the formal gardens of Ayscoughfee Hall, which was owned by the local district council. When McLaren approached the council with her proposal, it generated considerable debate within the community and several alternative schemes were suggested. After a public meeting and a vote in 1919, a reduced-scale version of McLaren's proposal emerged as the preferred option, in conjunction with a clock on the town's corn exchange
building.

The total cost of the memorial was £3,500, of which McLaren and her father-in-law contributed £1,000 each; her brother-in-law donated a pair of painted stone flags and the remainder was raised from voluntary subscription, which took until 1922. The memorial consists of a brick pavilion at the south end of the garden and a Stone of Remembrance, both at the head of a long reflecting pool, which incorporates the remains of an 18th-century canal. It was unveiled at a ceremony on 9 June 1922. Lutyens went on to use the style of the pavilion for shelter buildings in several war cemeteries on the Western Front, though none of his other war memorials follow the design and the memorial became relatively obscure. Spalding War Memorial is today a Grade I listed building, having been upgraded when Lutyens's war memorials were declared a "national collection" and all were granted listed building status or had their listing renewed.

Background

War memorials became a common sight in British towns and cities following the

Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) and later designing war memorials both for the commission and through his own practice. Spalding was one of his first war memorial commissions.[1][2][3]

The proposal for the Spalding war memorial originated with

Barbara McLaren (née Jekyll). Barbara was the widow of Francis McLaren – Spalding's Member of Parliament and a Royal Flying Corps officer, who was killed in a flying accident near RAF Montrose in 1917 – and the niece of garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, with whom Lutyens had collaborated on multiple previous projects.[1] Lutyens designed the McLarens' London house on Cowley Street in Westminster in 1911 and shortly after Francis' death in 1917 designed the headstone for his grave in Busbridge in Surrey. He was later responsible for the war memorial in the same village.[4][5]

Commissioning

A double-page spread from the Building News and Engineering Journal (Volume 118, 1920) showing Lutyens's first plan for Spalding War Memorial, which featured a large cloister surrounding a lily pond and a Stone of Remembrance

Barbara McLaren engaged Lutyens to design a memorial for the gardens of Ayscoughfee Hall, which Spalding Urban District Council had purchased in 1897 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Lutyens proposed a U-shaped cloister sheltering a Stone of Remembrance standing in front of a circular lily pool, in the centre of which would be a cross. McLaren hoped to include space for the families of those commemorated to add their own epitaphs but this proved impractical due to the amount of space that would have been required; she insisted that her husband not receive any special commemoration beyond that afforded to the other casualties.[1][5][6]

Lutyens's original proposal

McLaren approached the council with her proposal in January 1918. When it became public after the end of the war, the proposed scheme proved controversial, prompting debate within the community and on the letters pages of the local newspaper. Multiple alternative proposals were submitted, including both purely commemorative schemes such as a clock on the town's corn exchange building and functional schemes such as the conversion of Ayscoughfee Hall into a youth centre. The youth centre and Lutyens's proposal emerged as the leaders, and details of both were published in the local newspaper. The district council called a public meeting to debate the proposals, which was held on 1 August 1919. About three hundred people attended the meeting, at which the proponents of the two leading options plus a third proposal (the clock on the corn exchange) were allowed fifteen minutes each to outline their scheme. During the meeting, several other proposals were put forward, including a cenotaph or an obelisk in the market place.[1][7] The meeting was closed with the decision to hold a public vote, which was held on 23 August. The ballot paper included seven options, with each voter selecting a single choice:

  • A modified version of the McLaren–Lutyens scheme with a clock on the corn exchange building
  • The McLaren–Lutyens scheme unmodified
  • An obelisk in the market place and a memorial clock
  • The McLaren–Lutyens scheme and a youth centre in Ayscoughfee Hall
  • A cenotaph in the market place
  • A war widows' fund (in lieu of a monument)
  • The youth centre alone

The modified McLaren–Lutyens proposal emerged the clear winner, receiving 459 votes. The unmodified scheme was the second most popular option with 286 votes; the proposal for an obelisk and clock was the only other option to garner more than 200 votes.[1][7]

In September 1919, the Spalding War and Victory Memorials Committee was formed to oversee fundraising and construction of the memorial, the total cost of which was £3,500. McLaren and her father-in-law Charles McLaren, 1st Baron Aberconway contributed £1,000 each, Sir Herbert and Dame Agnes Jekyll donated £100, Henry McLaren (Barbara's brother-in-law) donated the stone flags, and the remainder was raised by public subscription, which took until 1922.[1]

The 1922 clock and carillon, now housed in a glass tower attached to the South Holland Centre

The clock and carillon (bell tower) of 23 bells was erected in 1922, the same year as Lutyens's memorial, on the corn exchange in the town centre. Three of the bells were inscribed with names of casualties from the war, chosen to represent all of Spalding's war dead, while others were inscribed with names of those involved in the commemorations. The corn exchange was demolished in 1972 and replaced with the South Holland Centre, an arts venue, with the clock and carillon re-housed in a tower on the roof. After refurbishment of the South Holland Centre in 1998, a new glass tower was built to house the clock and carillon after the bells were cleaned. On Armistice Day (11 November) 1998, the Western Front Association unveiled a plaque on the South Holland Centre to explain the significance of the clock tower.[8][9]

History

The memorial viewed from the side of the reflecting pool
The view along the pool from the war memorial, with the spire of Spalding parish church in the background

Lutyens's memorial in Ayscoughfee Hall Gardens was constructed by Hodson Limited of Nottingham, at the south end of the formal gardens, replacing an earlier castellated tower – a 19th-century folly known as the "Owl Tower". The unveiling took place at a ceremony on 9 June 1922, presided over by General

the national anthem; the dignitaries, including McLaren and her sons, then laid floral tributes around the Stone of Remembrance.[10]

The names of a further 24 casualties from the First World War were added to the central panel of the memorial prior to Remembrance Sunday 2014. The additions were the result of research by a member of the local branch of

South Holland District Council, which is based in Spalding.[11]

Design

The pavilion and
Stone of Remembrance
The pavilion and
Stone of Remembrance

Spalding's war memorial comprises a brick-built pavilion structure with

Union Flag to the left and the White Ensign to the right – and three panels on which are inscribed the names of more than two hundred servicemen from Spalding who died in the First World War. The central panel bears the dedication: "IN LOVE AND HONOUR OF THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR COUNTRY IN THE YEARS OF WAR MCMXIV – MCMXIX / THIS MEMORIAL IS RAISED IN THEIR HOME BY THE MEN AND WOMEN OF SPALDING". The frieze inside the pavilion contains a further inscription: "ETERNAL REST GRANT TO THEM O LORD AND LET LIGHT PERPETUAL SHINE UPON THEM".[1][14] A separate stone is dedicated to Francis McLaren and inscribed "THIS STONE COMMEMORATES FRANCIS WALTER STAFFORD McLAREN MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR THE SPALDING DIVISION 1910–1917 WHEN HE FELL IN THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY AT THE AGE OF 31".[15]

A Stone of Remembrance is sited on a platform of three steps in front of the pavilion, inscribed with the phrase "THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE" and the dates of the two world wars (the dates of the Second World War were added at a later date, though the names of the casualties from that conflict were not[16]). The stone is carved from a single piece of rock, with very slight curvature (entasis) barely visible to the naked eye. It is 12 feet (3.7 metres) long and devoid of any decoration besides the inscription. A long pool leads away from the structures – originally a canal from the garden first recorded in 1732, which Lutyens remodelled to form a reflecting pool in the style of an Italian formal garden; three low fountains were added at a later date. The pavilion and the pool are surrounded by yew hedges, which on the east side are broken at regular intervals by iron gates which lead to a peace garden, added in 1994.[1][14][17][18] The view of the pavilion at the head of the reflecting pool is reminiscent of Bodnant Garden at Lord Aberconway's home in Wales, Francis McLaren's childhood home.[19]

Impact

By the time the memorial at Spalding was unveiled in 1922, Lutyens had already been engaged in work on First World War memorials in Britain and abroad for several years. He had designed

Royal Academy at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1919.[20] Historic England described Spalding as "an exceptional departure" from the usual style of Lutyens's war memorials.[1] The design is not used elsewhere in his war memorials, but the pavilion had a significant influence on Lutyens's later designs for buildings in Imperial War Graves Commission cemeteries on the Western Front.[1] The resemblance is said to be "striking" at Anneux British Cemetery, Cambrai, and the Tuscan loggia motif recurs at several other cemeteries as well.[21]

The entrance shelter at Anneux British Cemetery, Cambrai, France[21]
The pavilion at the Spalding War Memorial

Spalding's memorial became relatively obscure, and was not covered extensively in any publication about Lutyens's works until the publication of Tim Skelton's Lutyens and the Great War in 2008.

Royal Naval Division Memorial on Horse Guards Parade in London.[23]

The memorial was designated a Grade II

See also

References

Bibliography

  • Amery, Colin; et al. (1981). Lutyens: The Work of the English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. London: .
  • Geurst, Jeroen (2010). Cemeteries of the Great War by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Amsterdam: 010 publishers. .
  • .
  • .
  • Skelton, Tim; Gliddon, Gerald (2008). Lutyens and the Great War. London: .

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Historic England. "Spalding War Memorial (1064002)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  2. ^ Skelton, pp. 24–25.
  3. ^ Amery et al., p. 148.
  4. ^ Skelton, p. 217.
  5. ^ a b Skelton, p. 50.
  6. ^ Skelton, Tim (August 2014). "War memorial of the month – August 2014". Memorials of the Great War. Lutyens Trust. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  7. ^ a b Skelton, pp. 51–57.
  8. ^ "Victory Clock and Carillon and Western Front Association Board/Plaque/Tablet". Lincs to the Past. Retrieved 30 December 2016.
  9. ^ "Spalding – WW1 Carillon". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 30 December 2016.
  10. ^ a b Skelton, p. 57.
  11. ^ a b "Spalding Gardens And Cloister – WW1". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  12. ^ The Lincolnshire, Boston and Spalding Free Press, 13 June 1922; quoted in Skelton, p. 57.
  13. ^ "Missing names added to war memorial in time for services". The Spalding and South Holland Voice. 6 November 2014. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  14. ^ a b Pevsner, p. 676.
  15. ^ "Spalding". Lincs to the Past. Retrieved 30 December 2016.
  16. ^ "New memorial for Spalding's WW2 fallen". Spalding Today. Johnston Press. 25 June 2016. Archived from the original on 29 December 2016. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  17. ^ Ridley, p. 278.
  18. ^ Historic England. "Ayscoughfee Hall (1000969)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  19. ^ Skelton, p. 56.
  20. ^ Skelton, p. 151.
  21. ^ a b Geurst, p. 198.
  22. ^ Skelton, p. 11.
  23. ^ Skelton, p. 91.
  24. ^ "National Collection of Lutyens' War Memorials Listed". Historic England. 7 November 2015. Retrieved 15 January 2016.

External links