£40,000 bill to restore memorial
Feb 1 2008 by Tony Henderson, The Journal
FUNDS are being sought to meet the estimated £40,000 cost of restoring and improving a village’s war memorial which has come under attack.
The First World War memorial in the form of a soldier at Church Bank in Newburn, Newcastle, commemorates men from the district who lost their lives in the conflict.
But one of four plaques on the side of the memorial which lists the names of some of the fallen has been stolen.
The memorial has also been subjected to graffiti attacks in the past.
“The soldier’s rifle is broken off and fingers are missing from a hand. It’s terrible, but the respect isn’t there,” said Ronnie Thompson, churchwarden at the nearby Church of St Michael and All Angels.
The memorial cost £550 which was raised by public subscription in 1922, when it was unveiled by the Duke of Northumberland.
City council monuments manager David Heslop said: “It has been attacked by vandals.”
The plan is to improve the setting of the memorial and install floodlighting within the next two years, subject to funding.
The need for the work emerges from a survey of the city’s historic memorials, statues and fountains.
Last year The Response war memorial in front of the Civic Centre was re-dedicated after its £35,000 restoration. It was adopted by the former Lord Mayor of Newcastle, Diane Packham, as one of her projects to benefit from the Lord Mayor’s Centenary Appeal.
Two other major memorial tasks are waiting to be tackled.
Restoration and cleaning work has already transformed city centre statues such as Lord Armstrong, Joseph Cowen, Queen Victoria and Earl Grey. George Stephenson in Westgate Road is now awaiting his turn, but the job will prove expensive for, as well as George himself, there are four other figures representing a plate layer, miner, blacksmith and engineer, and costs are likely to be around £30,000.
The upper part of the South African war memorial in the Haymarket is also on the to-do list. But when the body of the statue of Winged Victory at the top of the column is restored to its original bronze, a decision will have to be made on what to do with her wings, which are green fibreglass.
What has been resolved is that a suggestion that the water supply to the city’s historic drinking fountains could be re-connected is a non-starter.
Newcastle has eight fountains – the Edward VII fountain in the railings of St James’s Church in Benwell, the Blenkinsopp-Coulson fountain in Horatio Street above the Quayside, the Wesley fountain on the East Quayside, the Grainger memorial fountain in Waterloo Street, the restored Rutherford fountain in the Bigg Market and the Laing, W D Stephens and Colvill fountains, which are all on the Great North Road.
When the fountains were erected in the 19th Century, they were a valuable source of water for people, horses and livestock.
But health and safety implications rule out the restoration of water supplies today.
The survey also recommends that the stone and granite Colvill fountain, which was once rested against the wall of a building and was given to the city in 1889 by Caroline Colvill in memory of her brother Edwin Dodd Colvill, should be relocated.
It is currently supported by two metal posts and is developing cracks.
