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
Cranleigh – St Nicholas Church, Surrey,
Unknown British Soldier A relocated cross that we thought was lost during renovations work, turned up in a store. Location: St Nicholas Church, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8AS Details on cross: G.R.U. UNKNOWN BRITISH SOLDIER Text type (e.g. hand-written, GRU tags, carved):...
Cornwell – St Peter’s Church, Gloucestershire
Robert Charles Partridge (and Charles de Guerry Dalglish) Cornwell is a tiny privately owned hamlet situated in the North Cotswolds, not far from Chipping Norton. Dominating the hamlet is Cornwell Manor. St Peter's Church is a tiny Norman church only approachable on...
Burwash – St Bartholomew’s Church, East Sussex
There are 14 crosses at St. Bartholomew's Church in Burwash (although one of these is not a battlefield cross). They are all located high up in the entrance porch and there are seven on each side. The following men are commemorated here: Albert John Morris, Ernest...
Turners Hill – St Leonards. Crawley, West Sussex
Charlie Fieldwick, Alfred James Slight, William Godfrey Rapley, Ernest Richard Whitman & Colin Napier Buchanan Dunlop Location: St Leonards, Church Road, Turners Hill, Crawley West Sussex RH0 4PB Location: There are 5 crosses commemorated at St Leonards, Turners...
St Peters College – Oxford
Noel Godfrey Chavasse VC Location: St Peters College New Inn Hall Street Oxford Oxfordshire OX1 2DH Behind the new organ in the nave. Details on cross: LIVERPOOL SCOTTISH CAPT N. G. CHAVASSE V.C. WITH BAR M.C. KILLED IN ACTION 4 8 17 Biography Noel Godfrey Chavasse...
Wormsley – St Mary, Herefordshire,
THOMAS ANDREW GREVILLE ROUSE-BOUGHTON-KNIGHT Location: St Mary, Wormsley, Hereford, Herefordshire, HR4 8LY Details on Cross: GRU LT T.R. BROUGHTON-KNIGHT R.BGD Incomplete survey, no further details available. Lieutenant Thomas Andrew Greville Rouse-Boughton-Knight was...
Holme Lacey – St Cuthbert, Herefordshire
Sir ARCHIBALD LEONARD LUCAS-TOOTH Location: St Cuthbert's Church Church Road Holme Lacy Hereford HR2 6LX Details on Cross GRU 5-B-4 CRU/ S.B.4./ MAJOR LUCAS-TOOTH SIR . BART / 2-6 BATTY H.A.C. ATT. 126 BDE. A.F.A./ 12-7-1918 Appears to be a Standard British Army...
Ardbrecknish – St James’s Episcopal Church, Argyll and Bute
John Thorpe Location: St James’s Episcopal Church Ardbrecknish, Dalmally Argyll PA33 1BJ Details on cross: At top of the shaft a GRU Tag: GRU 3 On the shaft: R.I.P. With a metal badge of the Scots Guards below that On the cross beam: CAPTAIN J.S. THORPE. 2nd BN SCOTS...
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
