New beacon to be lit in Garstang to mark centenary of Armistice

Town councillors are ensuring the town will mark one hundred years since the end of World War One and honour the town’s war dead on November 11 with a fitting and memorable tribute.

The go-ahead for improvement work on the war memorial, which is located just off the High Street on the corner of Croston Road, was given last week.

Councillors agreed to spend £3,830 for a series of improvements.

These will include removing existing crazy paving and repaving the approach to the memorial with Indian sandstone flagstones, repointing the rear wall and edging existing flower beds.

A memorial bench and a flag pole will also be installed at the site.

Town Councillor Roger Brooks welcomed the investment. He said: “I’m very strongly in favour of improving the appearance of the war memorial and hopefully making it more readily accessible - members of the public possibly drive or walk by not realising it is there.

“Anything we can do to make it more attractive the better.

“The plinth is badly cracked and some flags need replacing and it needs repointing.”

The wall-style memorial carries two plaques honouring the war dead of Garstang, Bonds and Bowgreave.

Coun. Brooks said the memorial’s situation on the bend of the road near the roundabout at the top of High Street was “not a place where people congregate” and the intention is also to make the memorial’s location better known.

Coun Brooks now wants council representatives to meet British Legion members and church leaders to devise a special programme for remembrance events on November 11.

He said: “There are going to be many churches ringing their bells at 1.30pm on the 11th and of course we’re lighting a beacon.”

Coun Brooks said the centenary of the end of the war was “uppermost in my mind at the moment” as his family, including children and grandchildren, will be travelling to France in September to visit the grave of their relative Sgt William George Brooks of the Middlesex Regiment, who was killed in action on September 26, 1918, just north of Peronne.

Town Councillor Gordon Harter said the memorial was “long overdue a makeover” .

Volunteers from Garstang In Bloom have worked to improve plant displays and make the memorial more visible.