The “First War Memorial” By Philip Goodwin

Built below the Dominican Priory church at Woodchester in Gloucestershire, between July 1916 and May 1917, the Wayside Cross was probably the first war memorial of The Great War in the country. It was built initially for the Fallen of the Stroud Valleys, but so great was the need for it that people from all over Britain, Europe and the Commonwealth used it to honour and give Remembrance to their Fallen. During the Great War people attended ceremonies there in their thousands, 2-3000 people at the opening ceremony on June 3rd 1917, and perhaps up to 10,000 people at the first Remembrance Sunday held here on August 4th 1918, the fourth anniversary of the outbreak of war. There had been a few plaques in private chapels for the Crimean and Boer Wars, but nothing serving a whole town or district.