Memorials

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Captain Johnnie Walker

Captain Frederic John Walker, known as 'Johnnie Walker' was Britain's most successful anti-submarine commander during the Battle of the Atlantic in WW2. The tune 'A Hunting We Will Go' used to be played through the tannoy of his ship, the sloop HMS Starling. A career sailor, Johnnie Walker was born in Plymouth on 3 June 1896 and died on 9 June 1944 in Seaforth, Merseyside.

The statue is by local sculptor Tom Murphy.  Address approximate.

Region/Nation
Location/Address
Albert Parade
Albert Dock
Liverpool
County
Merseyside
Post Code
L3 4BB
Main Historic Period
Modern
Tip/Nearby
Albert Dock museums, Mersey Ferry
Primary Management
Local Authority
CENTRE of SCOTLAND

A stone marks the spot claimed to be the centre of Scotland. It is on the Glen Truim road, between the A889 and the A9, part of the 250 mile network of military roads built for the Government by General Wade after the Jacobite rising of 1715. This section was built in 1719 and is a section of the road between Fort Augustus and Ruthven Barracks at Kingussie. The stone replaces an earlier marker and was unveiled on 5th June 2015.

Post code is approximate.

Region/Nation
Location/Address
Glentruim Road
3 miles south of Newtonmore
County
Highland
Post Code
PH20 1BE
Main Historic Period
Modern
Link to featured article
Useful Website Address
Tip/Nearby
Highland Folk Museum, Macpherson Clan Museum, Ruthven Barracks
Primary Management
National Park
CHARING CROSS

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.

Region/Nation
Location/Address
Strand
County
London
Post Code
WC2 5HS
Main Historic Period
Victorian
Link to featured article
Tip/Nearby
Trafalgar Square
Primary Management
Local Authority
Chiltern Court, NW1

At the northern end of Baker Street near Regent’s Park is No 94, Chiltern Court. This was home to SOE’s Scandinavian Section and is where the famous Telemark Raid, commemorated on the memorial in Lambeth, was planned.  In happier times, it was also home to the novelists HG Wells and Arnold Bennett.

Location/Address
94 Baker Street
County
London
Post Code
NW1 5SR
Main Historic Period
Modern
Link to featured article
Tip/Nearby
Sherlock Holmes' Museum, Regent's Park
Primary Management
Private - not open to the public
CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE

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.

Region/Nation
Location/Address
Embankment
County
London
Post Code
WC2N 6PB
Main Historic Period
Victorian
Primary Management
Local Authority
COMMANDO MEMORIAL

The Commando Memorial in the Scottish Highlands was unveiled by the Queen Mother in 1952.  In a dramatic setting, it commemorates all the officers and men of the Commandos who gave their lives in the Second World War, and who trained in the moors and mountains nearby. A garden of remembrance was subsequently added, where veterans' ashes could be scattered. It is also used for those who died in more recent conflicts, such as the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan. The main monument depicts three WW2 Commandos in battledress, looking over the Nevis mountain range. The memorial receives thousands of visitors and is situated about a mile to the north west of Spean Bridge, at the junction of the A82 and B8004. There is parking.

Region/Nation
Location/Address
Nr Spean Bridge
County
Highland
Post Code
PH34 4EG
Main Historic Period
Modern
Tip/Nearby
Clan Cameron Museum at Achnacarry, Ben Nevis
Primary Management
Local Authority
CROSSBONES GRAVEYARD

An urban garden of remembrance has been created on the site of Crossbones Graveyard, a burial place for paupers, prostitutes and the unwanted. It developed from a late medieval 'single women's churchyard' - a resting place for the 'Winchester Geese', prostitutes licensed by the Bishop of Winchester to work in London's pleasure quarter, outside the confines of the City of London. The graveyard was closed on health grounds in 1853. An estimated 15,000 people are buried there in unmarked graves.

Staffed by volunteers, limited opening.

The post code is for the Boot & Flogger wine bar opposite.

Region/Nation
Location/Address
Redcross Way
Borough
County
London
Post Code
SE1 1TA
Main Historic Period
Georgian
Link to featured article
Useful Website Address
Tip/Nearby
Borough Market
Primary Management
Other
CZECHOSLOVAKIAN SOE memorial

The Czechoslovakian SOE memorial at Arisaig commemorates the Czechoslovak troops in exile who trained in the area during WW2 as part of SOE (Special Operations Executive).  Czech Jan Kubiš and Slovak Jozef Gabčík went on to carry out Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich in Prague on 27th May 1942. They died, or committed suicide, in a subsequent shoot-out, when German troops surrounded a church they were hiding in.

Czechoslovakia has been two sovereign states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, since 1993.

Region/Nation
Location/Address
Arisaig
Inverness-shire
County
Highland
Post Code
PH39 4NH
Main Historic Period
Modern
Link to featured article
Tip/Nearby
Silver Sands of Morar
Primary Management
Local Authority
D-DAY MEMORIAL, Southsea

Southsea’s D-Day Memorial is situated close to its Canoe Lake and South Parade Pier.  It resembles a tank trap, thousands of which were placed around Britain’s coast in the Second World War as part of its defence against invasion.  It was almost another world; the seafront was closed off from 1943 to all without a special pass and the beach was covered with barbed wire for the duration.  It is hard to imagine that thousands of troops boarded landing craft from South Parade Pier – additional, temporary, piers were built from scaffolding alongside to speed up the embarkation process – as well as from the Camber on Old Portsmouth, Portsmouth Harbour Station and what is now Portsmouth International Port. Portsmouth was the main departure point for units going to Sword Beach in Normandy.  Local people watched them march through the city, undoubtedly wondering how many would return safely.  27 men from Southsea were killed on D-Day and during the Normandy campaign.

The memorial looks its age.  It was unveiled by Field Marshal the Rt Hon Viscount Montgomery of Alamein on 6 June 1948.

Region/Nation
Location/Address
Junction of St. Helens Parade and Southsea Esplanade near South Parade Pier
Portsmouth
County
Hampshire
Post Code
PO4 9RG
Main Historic Period
Modern
Tip/Nearby
Canoe Lake, Model Village, D-Day Museum
Primary Management
Local Authority
DAMBUSTERS’ Memorial, Woodhall Spa

The Dambusters Memorial in Woodhall Spa commemorates members of 617 Squadron Royal Air Force who lost their lives in World War Two.

617 Squadron was formed at RAF Scampton in 1943, specifically for attacking dams in the Ruhr Valley using the ‘bouncing bomb’ designed by Barnes Wallis.  The Dams Raid, Operation Chastise, took place over the night of 16/17 May 1943 and was led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson (1918-44) flying modified Lancaster bombers. Two dams were breached, the Möhne and the Eder, at a cost of eight Lancasters, with fifty-three of the participating crew being killed and three becoming POWs.  The raid also killed an estimated 1600 German civilians and Russian POWs.

617 had a distinguished record after the Dams Raid, which included precision bombing based on targets being marked by low-level flying Mosquito aircraft.  From RAF Woodhall Spa, 617 Squadron began dropping the 12,000lb Tallboy and, later, 22,000lb Grand Slam bombs. The squadron also supported D-Day by the precision dropping of ‘window’ to spoof enemy radar. Between them, IX and 617 Squadrons, both employing Tallboys, sank the German pocket battleship Tirpitz.

The memorial at Woodhall Spa was erected in 1987 on the site of the former Royal Hydro Hotel and Winter Gardens which were destroyed in a Luftwaffe bombing raid in 1943. Shaped to depict a dam the memorial features a slate slab which represents water flooding through a breach, upon which the Squadron's crest and battle honours are engraved. It commemorates 204 aircrew of 617 Squadron who died in the Second World War.

A newer memorial to 617 Squadron in Royal Square commemorates members of the Squadron who have lost their lives in service since World War Two.

Après moi le déluge.

Region/Nation
Location/Address
Royal Gardens
Woodhall Spa
East Lindsey
County
Lincolnshire
Post Code
LN10 6QL
Main Historic Period
Modern
Tip/Nearby
Woodhall Spa is a pleasant little place, worth exploring, and has a cottage museum. The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight is not far away.
Primary Management
Local Authority

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