Building record 3907/0/21 - Weekley War Memorial

{1} First World War memorial, c1920.
Weekley’s war memorial, which stands to the south of St Mary’s church, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Historic interest: as an eloquent witness to the tragic impact of world events on the local community, and the sacrifice it made in the First World War;
* Design: an elegant limestone cross by the well-regarded Northamptonshire architect JA Gotch, who lived in Weekley and whose son is among those commemorated;
* Group value: it stands alongside the Grade I-listed church of St Mary, and is faced by the Grade II*-listed Montagu Hospital of 1611.
History
The memorial was designed for the Weekley War Memorial Committee by the leading Northamptonshire architect John Alfred Gotch, who lived in the village for nearly 40 years. His son, Roby Myddleton Gotch, Captain and Adjutant of the Sherwood Foresters who was reported missing on the first day of the Battle of the Somme (1 July 1916), is among the seven men commemorated on the memorial.
Details
The memorial stands on a green south of the Grade I-listed church of St Mary, and faced by the Grade II*-listed Montagu Hospital of 1611. It comprises a 3m high limestone cross with a Latin cross-head set on a tapering, square, shaft. That rises from a square plinth. Inscribed in raised lettering is (front face) TO KEEP
IN MIND THE/ GREAT WAR & THOSE/ FROM THIS PLACE WHO/ GAVE THEIR LIVES/ 1914 - 1919/ (rear
face) THEIR NAME/ LIVETH/ FOR EVERMORE. The names of the fallen appear on the other two faces. The
plinth itself stands on a two-stepped octagonal base.
Bailey, , Pevsner, , The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, (2013), 649
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [online]: Ian MacAlister, ‘Gotch, John Alfred (1852–1942)’, rev. John
Elliott, accessed 16/03/2015 from http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33484.

{2} Photo dated 05.04.1995;

<1> Historic England, 2015, Weekley War Memorial, (part checked) (Designation Advice Report). SNN109988.

<2> Photographs of buildings in Weekley (Photographs). SNN113887.

Record last edited

Aug 24 2022 12:15PM