Unveiled 1921 Official name Mells War Memorial Reference no. 1058315 | Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens Designated 1 January 1969 Architect Edwin Lutyens | |
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Location Selwood Street, Mells, Somerset Similar St Andrew's Church, Mells Park, The Cenotaph - Whitehall | ||
Mells War Memorial is a First World War memorial in the village of Mells in Somerset in the South West of England. It was designed by architect Sir Edwin Lutyens and unveiled in 1921. It is a grade II* listed building.
Contents
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 in several of Lutyens' civic memorials. The memorial in Mells is one of several structures in the village designed by Lutyens.
According to Tim Skelton, author of Lutyens and Great War, "if there was one village above all others that would have a war memorial designed by Lutyens, it would be the village of Mells". Lutyens' association with Mells originated through his connection with the Horner and Asquith families in the area. The Horner family owned Mells Manor, originally a 16th-century manor house, which Lutyens renovated in 1901. Sir John and Lady Frances Horner knew of Lutyens through Frances' sister, Dame Agnes Jekyll; her husband Herbert was the brother of horticulturalist Gertrude Jekyll, with whom Lutyens collaborated on multiple projects in his early career.
As with most of his war memorial commissions, Lutyens walked around the village in August 1919 to examine potential locations for the memorial. He was accompanied by Katherine Asquith, the daughter of Sir John and Lady Frances Horner, whose husband had been killed in the war. During the tour, Lutyens was moved to remark of the village's dignitaries: "all their young men were killed". He wrote to his wife, Emily, that he had "found a perfect site in the middle of the village, which no-one else found, or thought of, and with a little tact and patience it was carried by the villagers with acclaim".
History and design
The memorial was unveiled at a ceremony on 26 June 1921. The unveiling was performed by Brigadier-General Arthur Asquith, whose brother Raymond Asquith (the husband of Katharine, who had accompanied Lutyens on his visit to the village) was killed in action in the war and whose name is among those inscribed on the memorial; both men were the sons of Herbert Asquith, the British prime minister for the first half of the war. Raymond is also commemorated by a memorial in the nearby St Andrew's Church, which is also Lutyens' work, as is a memorial to Edward Horner in the same church.
The memorial takes the form of a Tuscan column of Purbeck Marble construction, on which stands a statue of Saint George slaying a dragon. The column stands on a tall, narrow pedestal in Portland stone which bears the inscription: "WE DIED IN / A STRANGE LAND / FACING / THE DARK CLOUD / OF WAR / AND THIS STONE / IS RAISED TO US / IN THE HOME / OF OUR DELIGHT / MCMXIV & MCMXIX"; a cross is engraved immediately above. To either side of the pedestal are matching panels onto which are inscribed the names of the village's war dead. At the same height are flanking walls of coarsed, squared rubble from the Doulting Stone Quarry in nearby Doulting, set back at the ends and topped with a yew hedge. In front of each wall is a small stone bench which protrudes across the base of the column, and above the benches, fixed to the wall, are round plaques bearing the dates of the Second World War and the names of the village's dead from that conflict. The statue and the inscriptions are both the work of Eric Gill. Mells is the most intricate of three of Lutyens' civic war memorials featuring a statue of Saint George, the others being at Fordham in Cambridgeshire and Hove in East Sussex (the statues for both of which are in bronze). A fourth, also featuring George and the Dragon, stands in the chapel at Wellington College in Berkshire.
Mells War Memorial was designated a grade II* listed building on 1 January 1969 and noted for its setting with the village hall, which is also listed at grade II*. 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.