The Barlick War Memorial Group

[Whyperion]

10% contingency is always common in construction type budgeting , hopefully it never gets spent.

A suitable location might be in part of what I think was the railway sidings/town green , which is roughly opposite the Church as well. The advantage is it removes the site from near the public convienencies , and frees up a bit more car parking space near to the town, allows the memorial area to be prominent without being domineering and close enough to town to avoid possible vandalism issues.

Could always twist Tesco's arm if they wanted to get there planning application through.

[Thomo]

Many thanks to you all for your input, I have been a tad busy for the past seven days and it isn't over yet, the work is progressing well and the worst is over, only the cosmetics remain. It is less than two days now to the inaugural meeting at Rolls Welfare, Sunday the 5th at 1400 hrs, any interested parties are welcome, I just have details of a couple more men to print off and all is ready. Right, back to the tiling now, I want to get the cooker area done today as said item will be in use for eight hours tomorrow. Once again, many thanks to you all and I am looking forward to Sunday.

Regards: Thomo.

[PanBiker]

Glad to hear you are getting a bit nearer "ship shape" Peter. Yes Sunday looms, I think I will populate my spreadsheet crib sheets to show how I am progressing with the WWII research. All my findings are now split between two sites so there is nearly three years worth over on the archive site that I can't get at for the moment to copy and paste into the research thread on this board. I can pull it all together on my spreadsheet though for folk to have a look at. Seems like a plan, I'll print a few copies out and bring them along.

[PanBiker]

A suitable location might be in part of what I think was the railway sidings/town green , which is roughly opposite the Church as well. The advantage is it removes the site from near the public convienencies , and frees up a bit more car parking space near to the town, allows the memorial area to be prominent without being domineering and close enough to town to avoid possible vandalism issues.

The land you mention, formerly the railway goods/shunting yard is now the Town Green. The basic premise of this status is that it is protected from development and is usually kept as an open space which I believe was why the council went for this status in the first place.

Apart from that it would be a very expensive way of getting a few more car parking spaces, we already have the main car park and one just off Rainhall Road that is very much underused because apparently people cannot walk the extra 50 yards into the town centre. There is no money to move it anyway, I noticed the proposal for the Memorial Gardens (with or without the cenotaph) was not covered in either of the local papers this week despite the press being present at the meeting. It may well be mentioned in later editions in which case there may be some feedback but I would not hold your breath.

[Whyperion]

For Those that are not clearly sure where the Memorial Gardens Are,

From a flickr page


Memorial Gardens Barnoldswick by gussyb24, on Flickr


Couple of notes and questions. Note the prominent litter bin and dog litter bin. Question Whats the white building. Observation, I understand the adjoining presbytarian church used to be the telephone exchange , is this correct?

An alternative view Kelbrook road from Google Streetview.

[Whyperion]

I would have thought that moving the War Memorial onto the Town Green would not be significant development , at the present time its a bit of over green with trees on that does not have a focus , and divides town rather than creating any kind of joining greenway. The parking spaces created could be useful and a means of justfying a bit of Pendle spend and contribution should it be desired to move the war memorial, which is currently crowded out by the car park excess trees ( not that I want them removed ) , town WCs , and recycling area. Is my timeline right that the Memorial was relocated before the co-op moved into its present location?

[Stanley]

The war memorial being rebuilt on its present site in 1983 when it was moved from Letcliffe.

[Tardis]

Ian is right about the status of the Town Green.

I had heard that LCC were going to "develope" that bit of Wellhouse where it comes to the cross roads with Station road and Fernlea because the Tesco development would put too much pressure on the ability of traffic to flow correctly at that point. Then they discovered that it was designated

I'm afraid my google-fu can not find a definition in law

Thus freeing up the cenoptaph site could mean it would become road if the Tesco is built

[Thomo]

In view of the current weather conditions and having recieved mail from Chris at Hebden, I am giving warning that unless conditions improve by 1000 tomorrow I wil post a cancelation message on here, with a new date and same time and place, on Sunday the 19th of February. We will get there.

Keep warm: Regards: Thomo.

[Thomo]

With some regret, I have decided to cancel today's meeting, Two reasons are the weather and my wife who is in a great deal of pain after her accident yesterday, I am not happy about leaving her alone. More later.

[Thomo]

May I now suggest that we hold our inaugural meeting on Sunday the 26th of February, 1400 hrs in the Merlin suite at Rolls Royce Welfare Club.

[PanBiker]

Fine by me Peter, we may have a bit of feedback by then about the proposed move as well.

[Thomo]

Next Sunday it is then, Chris is coming and I have just phoned Ken, he will be there, I just have to get hold of Vera now to see if she can make it.

[Thomo]

Vera will do her best to be with us, this puts us where we were four weeks ago, lets hope it doesn't snow again.

[Chris CPGW]

Ok team, See you all next Sunday at 14:00

Chris

[PanBiker]

I see that the proposal to move the memorial has now been in both of our local papers, the BET and Craven Herald. The Craven Herald article sheds light on what I was told in the marquee on the square when I went in to register my objections to the proposal. I was quite taken aback when I was told that the memorial would have to be dismantled in order to add more names to it! All three of the town councillors present were of the same view and I can see now by the article in the Craven Herald where the disinformation came from, providing this report was accurate of course.

The sites Newshound has not picked up on this so I will include the extract from the report below.

Quote from Craven Herald article:

"The Barnoldswick War Memorial Group is currently researching a project, which could see several more names added to the memorial. Councillor Hartley who is also a member of the group said, "The problem is there isn't any more room for names on the war memorial. The alternative is to add plaques to it, but it might have to be taken apart and rebuilt, so if you are doing that you might as well move it". The town council resolved to ascertain the cost and open a consultation to gauge the level of support for moving the monument."

I did take them to task over this completely false and Ill informed view, and asked if they were aware of the War Memorial Trust and their valuable work and recommendations for adding names to existing memorials. Needless to say they were not even aware that the organisation existed.

The problem is of course that incorrect information based on this assumption has been given out to all the townsfolk that took the trouble to visit the marquee and show an interest. How much impact this will have on the eventual result of the consultation remains to be seen.

I understand that they had an opportunity to combine the war memorial consultation with that of the consultation on the supermarket proposal and the launch of the new town website. Very sad to think though that the town council could not be bothered to get their facts straight and take a bit of advice before airing the issue, all it would have taken would have been a few phone calls.

[PanBiker]

The full article from the Craven Herald is now on their website:

Barnoldswick War Memorial could be moved

[Stanley]

The thing that keeps coming to my mind is the reason the Memorial Gardens on Kelbrook Road was virtually abandoned. Being away from the Town Centre it was not seen or visited by most people and became a hotbed of vandalism. I still think that the present site is ideal. It is part of the townscape and seen by so many people.

[PanBiker]

You're right there Stanley, If the memorial was re-sited to the Memorial Gardens it would actually be a lot less prominent than in it's present position. On approach into Barlick on Kelbrook Road, the memorial would not be visible until you reached the garage, at which point you are virtually level with the site. Leaving Barlick, you would not see it until you reached the end of Essex Street, again almost level with the site.
Contrast this with the present location, anyone coming into town via Skipton Road or Gisburn Road which are two out of the three arterial routes into town gets a really good view of the memorial all the way up from the mini roundabout and onto Fernlea Avenue. Coming the other way you can see it from just below the Library.



None of the trees that are on the actual memorial site were there in 1983. All have been planted since that date and have been allowed to grow out of hand to the sizes that we see today. At least two of the silver birches have reached nearly double the size of the cenotaph and in my view should be removed to both improve the view and to protect the foundations of the memorial. I can't understand why they were chosen for the site as part of the landscaping in the first place. If removed they could be replaced by lower level shrubs or bushes which could be managed better. Although having said that it would seem that ongoing maintenance of whatever projects are instigated by the town and borough does not seem to be high on priorities. This is not just due to the present economic climate as the state of the Memorial Gardens and various other sites around town can contest.

[Stanley]

As long as they leave the plum tree, it occasionally has some very heavy crops of good plums but plum trees are like that, unpredictable. Think of the number of people who pass it on the way to the Co-op car park. They may not look at it each time but they know it's there. A secondary consideration is that CCTV covers its environs.....

[Thomo]

The Day has arrived, there is no snow and my paperwork is ready. I have eight sets of copies with the current details of the ten candidates for initial consideration and there are twenty one others that require further research. Most of these were born here but I have to find out where they were resident at their time of enlistment or where their home was at time of death. Most of the sites I use are updated frequently and I recieve regular pointers for the names in question, I just have not had the time to have an in depth look yet. See you this afternoon at RR Welfare,

[Thomas]

It makes sense to leave the memorial where it is now, near the centre of town. If anything I would advocate trying to make it more prominent by opening up the surrounding space / removing the walls, at the moment I don't think the area gets much use as it feels 'fenced off' from the rest of town.

[Sunray10]

[Whyperion]

I was told in the marquee that the WM had to have an extra stone inserted for more names to be added , and that re-siting the memorial was a consideration. Even if the memorial is not re-sited , the memorial gardens are due to get a bit of maintainence and improvements to the paths and oranmental arrangments hard and soft landscaping.

Silver Birches should never be planted , they get out of control , seed far too easily and are not the best for wildlife to make the full use of. Shrubbery unfortunately attracts rats and tin cans.

[PanBiker]

I was told in the marquee that the WM had to have an extra stone inserted for more names to be added , and that re-siting the memorial was a consideration.

It is unfortunate that the councillors presenting the proposal for the memorial did not do their homework regarding the recommendations for appending names to existing structures. The War Memorials Trust is a registered UK charity that advises on the correct format for appending to existing memorials along with a host of other information on the maintenance and ongoing upkeep of the monuments. They exist to help protect and preserve our existing memorials throughout the U.K.

There is an etiquette that they recommend is adhered to for the correct way to append to memorials. The first generally accepted rule is that you do not modify the structure of the memorial in any way. So the town councillors view of "adding an extra stone" is a non starter. By doing this you would be altering the overall design of the memorial which should not be done. If there is existing room to accommodate new names, they should be added in exactly the same style as the existing inscriptions.

If you inspect our memorial you will see that there is only room for 3 more names in the recessed panels for the First World War casualties. We currently know of 11 and there could well be considerably more once all the research is completed.
The Second World War casualties were added to the lower level bevelled faces of the memorial and later know casualties onto the front vertical face. There are a couple of additions done in the 1960's which, unusually are dated. (1965 and 1967). I have currently found 4 potential additions all from between 1939-45,again, there could well be more as I have yet to check the many conflicts that took place post WWII.

In my view it would not be correct to either modify the structure or to append further names directly to the memorial as the flow of the existing dating regime on the memorial would be adversely affected. I feel the way forward would be to use a similar method to how they approached the issue at the Earby memorial site.

Earby's problem was that their memorial is a listed structure (on architectural merit) and as such could not be altered. They overcame the problem by adding newly discovered names to bevelled kerb-stones and then had these installed along with a new dedication stone adjacent to the existing protected structure. This approach has numerous advantages, you do not alter your existing structure in any way and therefore do not put it at risk (a major consideration). The stones can be produced off site (which is easier for the mason) and then installed to plan. Provision can be made for any further additions by inserting blank stones that can be incorporated in the design to be used if needed in the future.

Clearly this approach would also be considerably cheaper than dismantling 15 tons of granite memorial and rebuilding with an extra section, even if this was an acceptable way forward which it is not.

The result of the consultation may well be skewed by the misinformation given out in the marquee, particularly if people voted based on the assumption that it had to be dismantled as a requisite of adding names, which of course is a nonsense.

At the end of the day we must never forget that what we are dealing with here is a historical structure. Minimal interference to the original design and fabric is the order of the day. The War Memorial Trust will only support the re-location of an existing memorial if the location is no longer accessible by the public or the structure is at serious risk in it's present location of damage or loss.

This is not the case with our memorial on the existing site so moving it further away from the town centre merely to create a focal point for another area is totally unacceptable.