Reigate and Redhill War Memorial

Heritage listing

Details The memorial stands, facing north, at the conversion of three roads on a small grassed area, formerly a village green, known as Shaw’s Corner. The memorial consists of an allegorical bronze sculpture by Richard Reginald Goulden atop a square-set tapering granite plinth and two-stepped base. A bronze figure is of a man carrying a small child in his right arm, whilst holding aloft a flaming torch with the left. The figure strides through thick thorny brambles that enwrap him. A square-set stone plinth bears the principal inscription at the top in applied bronze (altered post-Second World War), and other short bronze inscriptions trace around the other three sides of this upper part of the plinth. The front of upper plinth originally said: IN MEMORY OF / MEN OF REIGATE / AND REDHILL WHO / FOUGHT AND GAVE / THEIR LIVES IN / THE GREAT WAR / 1914 – 1919, but the inscription was changed to: IN MEMORY OF / MEN AND WOMEN / OF THIS BOROUGH / WHO GAVE THEIR / LIVES IN THE / TWO WORLD WARS / 1914 – 1919 / 1939 – 1945. On the second side of the plinth is inscribed: COURAGE; the third side reads: HONOUR and the fourth side reads: SELF-SACRIFICE. The two-stepped stone base has a shaped upper step; it would be square but for sloping chamfered corner pieces. Set into the front face of this upper step is an interpretive bronze relief plaque which reads: THE BRONZE REPRESENTS THE TRIUMPHANT / STRUGGLE OF MANKIND AGAINST THE DIFFICULTIES / THAT BESET HIM IN THE PATH OF LIFE. / SHIELDING AND BEARING ONWARD THE CHILD, / THE FIGURE HOLDS ALOFT THE SYMBOL OF / SELF-SACRIFICE TO LIGHT THE WAY. / THE FLAMING CROSS IS USED TO INDICATE / THE SUFFERING ENDURED BY MEN IN THE WAR. / FLAMES CONSUME THE FLESH. / THE SPIRIT IS UNCONQUERABLE. This List entry has been amended to add sources for Wa

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.