This is the war memorial in the village of Hallaton.
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| The memorial, 2024 |
We came across it on a hot sunny day last week as we made our way through Leicestershire to the Cotswolds.
It was one of half a dozen we encountered, and the sheer number in what was a short journey reinforced that simple fact of how many young men died during the Great War.
Such was the suffering and profound sense of loss along with the wish to remember their sacrifice that war memorials were erected by local subscription across the country.
They come in different designs and sizes, but all reinforce the magnitude of the deaths.
More so when you compare the number killed with the size of the communities who built them.
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| The 45 Sentinels, 2024 |
I have yet to find out the population of Hallaton in 1918, but I guess it will be a tad smaller than the 594 who were here in 2011, and that is telling given that the war memorial records the names of 41 men who from the Great War and 4 from the Second World War.
And as if to underline that loss we saw just four people on a day when nothing else stirred, save the occasional passing car and the work of a stone mason repairing the church wall.
But the community has not forgotten the men, because close by was an information board to “The 45 Sentinels” which records the site of 45 trees planted around the village for each of the fallen. “Each tree has an engraved plaque with the man’s name, regiment and date of death”. And those details are replicated again on the information board.
Location; Hallaton
Pictures; the war memorials, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
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