Memorials

Burrow Mump is a natural hill rising out of the Somerset levels, with the ruins of a church, St Michael's, on top, giving the place an evocative feel. There was probably a castle on the site once. Burrow Mump also has possible associations with King Alfred, who hid in the marshes around nearby Athelney to escape the Danes.  It is now a war memorial, dedicated to all those from Somerset who died in the First and Second World Wars.

Post Code is for the nearby King Alfred pub. Small free car park at the foot of the hill.

The Cambridge American Cemetery commemorates almost 9,000 Americans who died while based in the UK, or travelling here, during the Second World War. It is the only World War II American military cemetery in the United Kingdom. The site was established as a temporary military burial ground in 1943, on land donated by the University of Cambridge, and has been granted free use in perpetuity by HM Government. It was dedicated in 1956, covers 30.5 acres and lies on a gentle slope overlooking farmland. Simple, white marble, headstones – mostly crosses – mark the resting place of 3,811 of America’s war dead - the missing are listed on large panels. There is a fascinating, and moving, visitor centre as well as an impressive memorial building.

During the First World War, there was a large military camp at Cannock Chase which became the base for the New Zealand Rifle Brigade. There was also a prisoner-of-war hospital with 1,000 beds, and both camp and hospital used the burial ground. Cannock Chase War Cemetery contains 97 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, most of them New Zealanders, and 286 German burials. There are also three burials of the Second World War.

Cannock Chase War Cemetery is signposted from the A34 when travelling from either Cannock or Stafford.

The original Charing Cross was the last of 12 memorials erected by Edward I, to honour his dead wife, Eleanor of Castile. A memorial was placed at every spot where her funeral cortege rested on its way south from her place of death, at Harby near Lincoln. The Charing Cross once stood in what is now Trafalgar Square, was destroyed in 1647 and replaced with an equestrian statue of Charles I in 1675. A Victorian replica was put up outside the nearby railway station in 1865, where it remains. It was restored in 2010.

Cleopatra’s Needle is the oldest object on London's streets and one of several interesting monuments on London’s Embankment, not far from Westminster.  It is an Egyptian obelisk, one of a pair originally made for the Pharaoh Thutmose III in c1500 BC, erected in Heliopolis and moved to Alexandria in 12 BC.  The link to Cleopatra is spurious.  It is a single piece of inscribed granite about 60 feet (18m) high and weighing around 186 tons (189,000Kg).  The monument was presented to Britain by the Turkish Sultan of Egypt and Sudan, Mahommed Ali, in 1819 in commemoration of Lord Nelson’s victory at the Battle of the Nile in 1798 and Sir Ralph Abercromby’s victory at the Battle of Alexandria in 1801.

However, the obelisk was not moved to the UK until September 1877.  Its journey is a story in its own right.  A cigar-shaped container ship named the Cleopatra – a kind of iron cylinder complete with deckhouse, mast, rudder and steering gear – was specially made to transport the obelisk, and its crew.  It was towed by the steamship, Olga, but a violent storm struck in the Bay of Biscay, the towropes had to be cut and six men from the Olga drowned trying to rescue the Cleopatra’s crew.  The crew were saved, but Cleopatra was lost in the raging seas.  Later, she was sighted and towed into harbour in Spain.  From there, the paddleship Anglia towed her to England, arriving in Gravesend on 21 January 1878. Crowds cheered as Cleopatra's Needle was towed up the Thames.  It was finally erected on the Embankment on 12 September 1878. The two sphinxes that sit beneath it were cast in bronze at the Ecclestone Iron Works in Pimlico in 1881.

London’s Cleopatra’s Needle has a twin in New York’s Central Park.