Wednesday, 22 October 2008

Battlefield crosses


Quite a number of churches in Shropshire have old wooden crosses as memorials to the men whose names are on them. Some are more prominent than others. St Laurence's in Ludlow has three in the main porch, others are hidden away such as Lydham where they are in the vestry. They fascinate me. Clearly they have been brought back from the battlefield where they marked the grave of the dead soldier. When and how and by whom were they brought back though? The only internet reference I can find is on the Hellfire Corner site but it doesn't really answer the questions:

http://www.fylde.demon.co.uk/crosses.htm

The churches in Shropshire where I have identified them are:

Billingsley; Bitterley; Claverley; Ford; Ludlow; Lydham; Norton in Hales; Ruyton XI Towns and Lydbury North.

Does anybody know any other examples?
PS I have recently come across some further information about these crosses which forms part of the WW1 memorial in Cruckmeole school. It states that they were often made by local French carpenters. Largely because of the quantity involved and the inevitably chaotic conditions which prevailed, the small metal tags giving name, rank etc were sometimes obtained from slot machines on railway stations and other places. When the wooden crosses were eventually replaced with stone markers, realising their historical significance, the IWGC sent them home to the families or gave them to organisations such as Toc H. The remainder were, appropriately, burnt and the ashes scattered over the cemetery.