Spalding War Memorial
Spalding War Memorial is a First World War memorial in the gardens of Ayscoughfee Hall in Spalding, Lincolnshire. The memorial consists of a brick pavilion at the south end of the garden and a Stone of Remembrance. The total cost of the memorial was £3,500, of which Barbara McLaren and her father-in-law contributed £1,000 each.
About Spalding War Memorial in brief
Spalding War Memorial is a First World War memorial in the gardens of Ayscoughfee Hall in Spalding, Lincolnshire. It was designed by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. The memorial consists of a brick pavilion at the south end of the garden and a Stone of Remembrance, both at the head of a long reflecting pool, which incorporates the remains of an 18th-century canal. The total cost of the memorial was £3,500, of which Barbara McLaren and her father-in-law contributed £1,000 each. It is today a Grade I listed building, having been upgraded when Lutyen’s war memorials were declared a “national collection” and all were granted listed building status or had their listing renewed. The memorial was unveiled at a ceremony on 9 June 1922 and is now part of the Lincolnshire War Memorials Trust, which was set up to raise money for the war dead in the town in 1918. The trust is now run by the same family, the McLarens, who still live in the same house in the village of Ayscough Fee Hall, which is now a Grade II listed building. The Trust is now owned by the University of Lincoln and runs a war memorial fund to help the town’s war dead, which has raised more than £1.5 million since the war’s end. It also runs a charity in memory of the late Member of Parliament, Francis McLaren, who was killed in a flying accident during the war. McLaren was the widow of Francis McLaren and a Royal Flying Corps officer, who died in 1917 near RAF Montrose in 1917.
He was the son of Barbara McLaren, the niece of garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, and a friend of the architect, who had previously designed country houses for wealthy clients. In January 1918, Barbara McLaren approached the council with her proposal for a memorial to Spalders’ war dead. The proposal generated considerable debate within the community and several alternative schemes were suggested. After a public meeting and a vote in 1919, 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. Multiple alternative schemes including both purely commemorative schemes and functional schemes such as the conversion of the corn exchange into a youth centre were put forward. During a meeting on 1 August 1919, around 300 people attended, including a number of proponents of the two leading options plus a third proposal. The council called a meeting to debate the proposals, at which the proponents of each plan were allowed to outline their scheme and each allowed fifteen minutes to put forward their outline. The final proposal was put forward by Lutyes, who proposed a U-shaped cloister sheltering a Stone Of Remembrance standing in front of a circular lily pool, in the centre of which would be a cross.
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This page is based on the article Spalding War Memorial published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
