Some stories on the way

The previous version of this site carried a blog of a journey towards the 2014 exhibition in the Corinium Museum, which is not reproduced. We give a few stories below.

8 Nov 2012 

The War Memorials Trust has sent us their bulletin. They have launched www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk which cost English Heritage £250K, so it is cleverer than this site, which has only cost about £36 a year so far. Their new site uses the Imperial War Museum listing of memorials, and wants you to add in the details. The Trust is set up to preserve war memorials, and has many examples of those in disrepair. Our church memorial has just had a facelift, of course, but we need to carefully watch the other, which CDC is minded to sell, we hear.

From W&G Standard 8 Aug 1914 [four days after War Declared]

Army horses from Ciren district 

On Wednesday morning a party of officers and men from the 18th Hussars arrived at Cirencester with instructions to procure 72 horses at once. We understand the horses were obtained during the day, many of the hunting men of the district and other owners readily placing their horses at the disposal of the government. Between 70 and 80 horses of various stamps and all exceedingly serviceable were marshalled in the yard of the King’s Head Hotel on Wednesday evening, and after being branded and labelled were taken by the soldiers in charge to Salisbury Plain. On Thursday morning owners having horses for sale were requested to parade them at the Cirencester cattle market at 11 o’clock. Found by Linda Viner – published in Newsletter 59

1 April 2013 

Some controversy surrounds the Bannatyne Staircase (see Other Cirencester Memorials) which is not “listed”, nor is the building in which it is located. CDC would clearly like to demolish the Memorial Hospital, but have been trying to find relatives since 2002. It is a handsome staircase which would have been climbed by most patients and visitors to the hospital which closed in the early 90s. Member Simon Fielding of Rendcomb later provided detail of Bannatyne’s life and death.

Note added 2022. The staircase was removed to the family and the building demolished in about 2020.

23 November 2015 

News of a Gloucestershire man who does not seem to be on any memorial. Kevin Gordon of Seaford Museum in Sussex has been researching the 250 or so war graves in his local churchyard – there was a military hospital nearby. Henry Robert DAY, 11th Glos Rgt died aged 19 on 10th November 1915. Linda has found that the family lived in many places in the county and the death announcement in WGS. Kevin ensured that a poppy was placed on his grave on the centenary of his death

The history of the Memorial Hospital building can be found in Newsletter 48