Spalding War Memorial

Spalding War Memorial
United Kingdom
For 224 men from Spalding killed in the First World War
Unveiled 1922
Location 52°47′03″N 0°09′01″W / 52.7840792°N 0.1501686°W / 52.7840792; -0.1501686Coordinates: 52°47′03″N 0°09′01″W / 52.7840792°N 0.1501686°W / 52.7840792; -0.1501686
Ayscoughfee Hall gardens, Spalding, Lincolnshire
Designed by Sir 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 name Spalding War Memorial
Designated 20 November 1975
Reference no. 1064002

Spalding War Memorial is a First World War memorial in the gardens of Ayscoughfee Hall in Spalding, Lincolnshire, in eastern England. The memorial was designed by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens in a departure from the usual style of Lutyens' war memorials. The proposal for a war memorial in Spalding originated in January 1918 with Barbara McLaren, whose husband, the town's Member of Parliament Francis McLaren, was killed in the war. She engaged Lutyens via a family connection and the architect produced a plan for a grand memorial cloister sited in the middle of a circular pond in the 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 debate in August 1919, followed three weeks later by a vote, 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 as-built consists of a brick pavilion at the south end of the garden and a Stone of Remembrance (designed by Lutyens for the Imperial War Graves Commission, for which he was one of the principal architects), 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 buildings in several war cemeteries on the Western Front, and the connection with Barbara McLaren may have led to his commission for the Royal Naval Division Memorial in London after she remarried to a prominent officer in that unit. Spalding War Memorial is today a grade I listed building, having been upgraded when Lutyens' war memorials were declared a "national collection" and all were granted listed building status or had their listing renewed.

Background

In the aftermath of the First World War, thousands of war memorials were built across Britain. Amongst the most prominent designers of memorials was architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, described by Historic England as "the leading English architect of his generation". Lutyens designed the Cenotaph on Whitehall in London, which became the focus for the national Remembrance Sunday commemorations, as well as the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing—the largest British war memorial anywhere in the world—and the Stone of Remembrance which appears in all large Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries and forms part of several of his civic memorials, including Spalding's. Historic England described Spalding as "an exceptional departure" from the usual style of Lutyens' war memorials.[1] His design for Spalding was one of several of Lutyens' early post-war commissions featured in a war memorials exhibition hosted by the Royal Academy at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1919.[2]

The proposal for the memorial originated with Barbara McLaren (née Jekyll), 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 headstone for McLaren's grave in Busbridge in Surrey, where he was also responsible for the village's war memorial,[3] and had previously designed the McLarens' London house on Cowley Street in Westminster.[4]

Commissioning

The pavilion and 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 around a Stone of Remembrance with a cross, all mounted at the centre of a circular lily pool. McLaren had hoped to include space for the families of those commemorated to add their own epitaphs—though she insisted that her husband not receive any special commemoration beyond that afforded to the other casualties—but this proved impractical due to the amount of space that would have been required.[4][5]

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 like the conversion of Ayscoughfee Hall into a youth centre. The youth centre and Lutyens' proposal emerged as the leading proposals 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. Around 300 people attended the meeting, at which the proponents of the two leading proposal 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. 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:

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 obelisk/clock proposal was the only other option to garner more than 200 votes.[1][6]

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 (Francis McLaren's brother, Barbara's brother-in-law) donated the stone flags, and the remainder was raised by public subscription, which took until 1922.[1]

History and design

The memorial viewed from the side of the reflecting pool

The memorial was constructed by Hodson Limited of Nottingham, at the south end of the garden, replacing an earlier castellated tower within the formal gardens of Ayscoughfee Hall. It comprises a brick-built pavilion structure with hipped roof of red pantiles and floored with red bricks in a herringbone pattern. The side of the pavilion facing the pool has three Tuscan stone arches, with another Tuscan arch opening on each sidewall. The solid rear wall bears two painted stone flags—the Union Flag to the left and the White Ensign to the right—and three panels on which are inscribed the names of 224 servicemen from Spalding who died in the First World War. A central panel bearing further names was added in 2015 and 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".[1][7]

The view along the pool from the war memorial, with the spire of Spalding parish church

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. 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, with a contemporary Peace Garden located to the east.[1][7]

The unveiling took place at a ceremony on 9 June 1922, presided over by General Sir Ian Hamilton and dedicated by Reverend Alfred Jarvis, Assistant Chaplain-General to Northern Command. Barbara McLaren attended the ceremony along with several other members of the Jekyll and McLaren families.[8][9] Several dignitaries gave speeches at the ceremony, including Jarvis, who spoke of the dead among the poppies on the Western Front, a "symbol of oblivion". Hamilton spoke of the results of the carnage of the war; referring to the idea that the First World War was the war to end war, he told the assembled: "The result has been so different. Europe is a seething cauldron of racial hatred; Ireland [...] is linked in our minds with the idea of murder; Mesopotamia [modern-day Iraq], India, and Egypt are straining at the leash of civilisation. The general concluded: "If you want to end war, you must end hatred" and that "In that way, I believe we shall be working towards peace, and in that way we will be doing in our own small way our best each of us—and Spalding minds united are a great force—and in that way we shall perpetuate the memories of those whose untimely deaths we have come here to commemorate".[10] At the conclusion of the speeches a lone bugler played the "Last Post" and the crowd sung the national anthem, after which the dignitaries—including McLaren and her son—laid floral tributes around the Stone of Remembrance.[8]

The pavilion at Spalding had a significant influence on Lutyens' later designs for buildings in Imperial War Graves Commission cemeteries on the Western Front.[1] The memorial became relatively obscure, and was not featured in any publication about Lutyens' works until Tim Skelton's Lutyens and the Great War (first published 2008).[11] Barbara McLaren later re-married to Bernard Freyberg, an officer in the Royal Naval Division, which Skelton speculates may have led to Lutyens' commission for the Royal Naval Division Memorial on Horseguards Parade in London.[12]

The memorial was designated a grade II listed building in November 1975.[1] In November 2015, as part of commemorations for the centenary of the First World War, Lutyens' war memorials were recognised as a "national collection" and all of his free-standing memorials in England were listed or had their listing status reviewed and their National Heritage List for England list entries were updated and expanded. As part of this process, Spalding War Memorial was upgraded to grade I listed building status.[13] Ayscoughfee Hall itself is also listed at grade I, while the gardens are listed at grade II on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England.[1]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Spalding war memorial.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Historic England. "Spalding War Memorial (1064002)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  2. ↑ Skelton, p. 151.
  3. ↑ Skelton, p. 217.
  4. 1 2 Skelton, p. 50.
  5. ↑ Skelton, Tim (August 2014). "War memorial of the month - August 2014". Memorials of the Great War. Lutyens Trust. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  6. ↑ Skelton, pp. 51–57.
  7. 1 2 Pevsner, p. 676.
  8. 1 2 Skelton, p. 57.
  9. ↑ "Spalding Gardens And Cloister - WW1". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  10. ↑ The Lincolnshire, Boston and Spalding Free Press, 13 June 1922; quoted in Skelton, p. 57.
  11. ↑ Skelton, p. 11.
  12. ↑ Skelton, p. 91.
  13. ↑ "National Collection of Lutyens’ War Memorials Listed". Historic England. 7 November 2015. Retrieved 15 January 2016.
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