THE PROJECT
THE HISTORY
THE SURVEY
LOCATIONS
Update
Hello all, this project is still open but is currently hibernating. We would love to complete it, but this is very dependent on time and whether we can secure additional funding to pursue it.
Thanks to everyone who has been involved, including those who still are, and all those who visit and comment or share, it has so far been a terrific success, we hope to extend that in the future.
In the meantime we fully intend to keep the site live in its current form, and are still taking any info you have with a view to one day finishing the database as time allows.
Nick & Tim. April 2023.
Recent marker reports
Little Thurrock – St Mary the Virgin, Essex
Richard C Gore Details on Cross Unavailable Dimensions Unavailable The marker is for WR/500839 Sapper Richard C. Gore R.E., who died from the effects of influenza on 13th November 1918. His original wooden cross now lies within Little Thurrock parish church near...
Oxton – St Saviours, Wirral, Cheshire
Alan Scott Balfour Location: St Saviours Oxton, Prenton, Wirral Cheshire CH43 2JZ Details on cross: Small metal GRU tag at top of shaft, also circular brass plaque on centre of cross. 2 small holes above tag where presumably another tag had been. There is a circle of...
Penicuik – Glencorse Parish Church, Midlothian
Patrick Seton Fraser-Tytler Location: Glencorse Parish Church, Penicuik Midlothian EH26 0EU Details on cross: Top of the shaft: a G.R.U. metal tag G.R.U. On the shaft above the cross beam: RIP in Memory of On the cross beam: Capt; P.S. Fraser-Tytler D (How;) Battery...
Thornton Hough, Wirral – All Saints Church, Cheshire
Unknown British Soldier Location: All Saints Church Raby Road Thornton Hough, Wirral Cheshire CH63 1JP Details on cross There is a metal tag on the cross member Unknown British Soldier Text type: GRU tags. Cross dimensions (millimetres please) Shaft Height: 974mm...
Lockerley – St John’s Church, Hampshire
UNKNOWN BRITISH SOLDIER Location: St John's Church Romsey Road Lockerley Hampshire SO51 0JJ Details on Cross: GRU tag UNKNOWN BRITISH SOLDIER and plaque “1914-1918 THIS CROSS TEMPORARILY MARKED THE GRAVE OF AN UNKNOWN BRITISH SOLDIER ON THE WESTERN FRONT AND IS...
Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (Royal Warwickshire) Museum.
UNKNOWN BRITISH SOLDIER Location: Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (Royal Warwickshire) Museum. Warwick Warwickshire CV34 4NF Website Details on cross: GRU UNKNOWN BRITISH SOLDIER RL WARWICKS Text type; Three GRU tags. Cross dimensions Shaft Height: 1400-1500...
Lancashire Fusiliers Museum – Bury, Lancashire
Thomas Lines Location: Lancashire Fusiliers Museum Bury, Lancashire BL9 ODF Website Details on cross: The cross commemorates 2nd Lieutenant Thomas Lines (2nd Salford Pals, 16th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers). A small GRU tag at the top of the cross (faded) and three...
Great Torrington – St Michael’s church, Devon
St Michael's, an Anglican church. “This Church was blowen up with powder Febr ye 16th Anno 1645 and rebuilt AD 1651”. This happened during the Battle of Torrington, the biggest battle ever fought in Devon. Fairfax and Cromwell defeated the Royalist army under Lord...
On the blog
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About the project
Wooden Battlefield Crosses and grave markers exist all across Great Britain and indeed across the world. You can find them in churches, memorial halls, chapels, museums and private dwellings. Although various lists exist there is no definitive study of them; the available information is often buried in collections of other memorials. These are deeply personal connections with the people involved in the conflict and form a direct link to the families, loved ones and communities who were left behind.
The aim of this project is to try and provide an online resource which creates a place to find the information about these curious objects, where they exist, how to access them and what they meant a century ago, how they continue to be part of the communities they still exist in and how people continue to engage and respond to them as a link the link to First World War.
Ultimately the intention is to list every single battlefield cross or wooden grave marker returned from the lines in Europe to Great Britain after the war ended. The website will hopefully provide a resource that will give everyone access to information on as many of the locations and as much detail as possible about the stories surrounding the people whose graves they marked in France and their symbolic return to the people they left behind.
We need your help…
You can send us information on your local wooden crosses and battlefield markers, whether it be your own photos, photos you have permission to use from a local archive, details of the building and how the marker has become part of the story of it. We also need your research on the soldiers, their life and service, their families, the incidents surrounding their death and the eventual return of the grave marker to Britain and back to the community where the person came from.
We have provided an easy guide to help you to survey, photograph and research these sites and a rough but growing list of locations which we will hopefully be building on as more information comes to light. We will also be putting together an online guide looking at how and where to research the stories of the men these crosses are named for and how you might be able to look into the story behind them to build an online collection which everyone can use to explore these fascinating memorials.
Contact us
Have you done a survey or do you fancy having a go at one? Maybe you aren’t sure what to do or maybe you have already completed some research on a battlefield cross you’d like to add to the project or share via the website.
Perhaps you think you may have something nobody has seen in nearly a century in your loft or shed? Let us know.
Please send us an email to info@thereturned.co.uk
