Berkshire Historic Environment Forum

 

Berkshire War Memorials

 

 

These web pages are designed to provide an inventory of War Memorials in Berkshire. It is organised first by district and then by parish/town. Other settlements and hamlets will be dealt with under their Civil Parish name or district name if unparished.

 

At the parish/town level there will be a page which identifies all the known memorials within the area and may provide links to pictures or descriptions of all these memorials. Alternatively, especially where an area has a large number of memorials, the area page merely lists the memorials and you can click on their name to see more detail about each individual memorial.

 

In this survey we are including any or all of the following:

Official Town and Village War Memorials

Lists of names of the fallen inside churches and other buildings

Muster lists of those who served

Commonwealth War Graves Commission graves with civil and ecclesiastical cemeteries

Individual or family memorials

Memorials to men of particular military units

 

The structure will be used to find other resources within the several villages and towns in Berkshire, so you may find links to the home pages of village and local group web sites from the relevant District or Parish pages

 

So let's start at the District/Borough Level (we include areas formerly administered by Berkshire County Council):

 

Bracknell Forest  |  Reading  |  Slough  |  South Oxfordshire  |  Vale of the White Horse  |  West Berkshire  |  Windsor & Maidenhead  |  Wokingham

 

Places just across the County Border  |  Memorials for other wars

 

Click on any of these names to go to the next level

 

Other Sites and Projects

Over the years there have been many other organisations and individuals which have researched War Memorials in Berkshire. Here are a few that may be of interest.

 

Berkshire Family History Society

Commonwealth War Graves Commission Roll of Honour for Berkshire

Imperial War Museum - National Inventory of War Memorials

War Memorials Trust

War Memorials Transcripts

 

 

War Memorials

 

Most towns and villages have their war memorial, mostly dating from the First World War and added to for the Second World War. In many cases the churches too have their memorials and often there is a Roll of Honour which lists all the names of men from that area who served, whereas the main memorials list only those who died. However there are many other memorials and one of our objectives is to identify all these others. Just for starters consider:-

Schools - both primary and secondary

Factories and places of work

Hospitals

Offices

Private memorials, eg windows, plaques in churches

Names added to parent's graves

Graves of men who fell in a war (for WW1 and WW2 these are managed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission)

Graves of men who served and died after the war

Military establishments

 

It is not just the two World Wars we are interested in. There are memorials going back to the Civil War in the 17th Century and right up to date from all sorts of other conflicts. Most villages and churches have both First and Second World War memorialss. We have one page which will take you to memorials of other conflicts CLICK HERE such as :- Culloden, Civil War, Zulu Wars, 2nd Afghan War, Sudan Campaign, Boer War, Korean War, Falklands War

 

How to Participate

 

We will welcome any contributions from people across the County. You may wish to design your own village page and provide links to your own website to give the extra details. In most cases however we suggest you construct a document containing the name of your village and of the memorial and then any or all of the following:-

pictures of your memorial

details of the men listed on the memorial

names of contacts who are researching the memorial

who is responsible for the memorial

details of booklets or leaflets

a report on the current state of the memorial

 

It is best if you produce a pdf document, but we can accept WORD documents as well and we will convert them to pdf. We will then post your document on this website. If you send a pdf you can include links to your own or other websites, but you must spell out the url in full, starting with http://www. So long as you are not defamatory you can include anything you like on your page.

 

Then e-mail the document to john.chapman@purley.eu and we will do the rest.

 

About this survey

 

And finally a few words about some of the cryptic numbers you may notice on the pages and the way we are tackling the project.

 

At the bottom of each page there will be a reference such as BWMxxxx and a date. This is a private key to the Civil Parish or town. A number of hamlets and villages form part of a neighbouring parish and their details are included on their Civil Parish page. The first numeral indicates the District, ie

BWM1xxx is Slough

BWM2xxx is Reading

BWM3xxx is Windsor and Maidenhead

BWM4xxx is West Berkshire

BWM5xxx is Wokingham

BWM6xxix is Vale of the White Horse

BWM7xxx is South Oxfordshire (south of River)

BWM8xxx is Bracknell Forest

BWM9xxx refers to villages in adjacent counties

 

Against some of the memorials listed you may see a reference like WM5xxx. This is a reference to the memorial site itself and is an extension of the system used in the book 'Silent Cities' which listed all the CWGC memorials world wide.

WM0001 to WM2999 refer to CWGC cemeteries

WM3000 to WM3099 refer to CWGC official memorials

WM4000 to WM4999 refer to cemeteries and Churchyards in the UK and Ireland where men are buried in CWGC graves

WM5000 to WM5999 refer to village and town memorials in the UK and Ireland

WM6000 to WM6999 refer to individual or family memorials

WM7000 to WM7999 refer to lists of names published in local newspapers

 

Individual memorials within West Berkshire have also been allocated a quite separate identification in the form WBxxx. These are recorded in greater details on the West Berkshire War memorials site.

 

Behind this project is another huge military project which attempts to identify all the men who served in one of the Berkshire Regiments or who came from Berkshire and served in the forces between 1800 and 1920. We are gradually adding all the names from the Berkshire memorials to this database and that is being used to generate the lists of men and their basic details which will eventually be added to the village pages. Note that these lists include only men who fell or served in WW1.

 

We are grateful to Alan Hutchins of the Berkshire Family History Society who painstakingly recorded the vast majority of names on Berkshire War Memorials. You can purchase the fruits of his work from the BFHS on microfiche. Also to Phil Wood who has assembled the West Berkshire site and taken may photographs. Also to many other people who have researched their local memorials, many of whom have published booklets. Where known these names and details are included on the parish pages.

 

There are a number of phases to this project as follows:-

Phase 1 - Setting up pages for each of the towns and villages in Berkshire - This has been completed although the parish name has not always been correctly inserted.

Phase 2 - Inserting the list of locations and individual memorials in each parish using mainly the lists available on the BFHS microfiches - this is about 80% complete

Phase 3 - Adding photographs and descriptions on the memorials and of researchers that we are aware of - only a handful done so far

Phase 4 - Adding links to pages to take you to village memorials as provided by local researchers - only a handful done so far

Phase 5 - Putting the names from memorials prior to 1920 into the data base - about 25% complete

Phase 6 - Identifying the men listed and checking their CWGC entry - about 10% complete

Phase 7 - Publishing the list of names and the basic details of the men - about 30 done so far

 

Certain policies and standards have been adopted. These are summarised below:-

 

  • Each parish/town page is headed by its District and Parish name followed by a list of settlements within the parish
  • Memorials are listed under locations within the parish. As far as possible a rough OS Grid reference is given which should enable you to locate the site on an Ordnance Survey map. Almost all the locations are within zone SU so this is not quoted. A few that lie to the east have had 100 added to their easting to avoid misidentification.
  • Wherever possible a link is provided to the web site of the Parish Council and Local History Society, also in many cases to the Wikipedia entry.
  • Churches and churchyards are treated as distinct locations.
  • None of the parish pages contains pictures or photographs. Where these are available they will be found either on a different website or held on a pdf document which is linked and can be downloaded
  • The memorial code (WMxxxx and/or WBxxx) is added in brackets to the end of the line defining the memorial.
  • In general the conflicts will be arranged in chronologiial order within location

 

Memorial descriptions used are:-

  • Stone Cross - typically mounted on a plinth
  • Calvary - stone cross with an image of Jesus hanging from it.
  • Obelisk - a stone pillar
  • Stone plaque - a wall mounted plaque made of stone (occasionally the stone type is identified)
  • Metal plaque - a wall mounted plaque made of metal (usually brass or bronze)
  • Scroll - a paper or parchment usually framed and wall mounted
  • Book - a book of remembrance

 

Certain words and phrases are deemed to have specific meanings eg

  • Muster Roll - a list of names of men from the parish who served. These are listed in the 5xxx series of memorials
  • Roll of Honour - a list of men who died. These too are listed in the 5xxx series. In most cases this description is not used as it is assumed that the memorial is a roll of honour.
  • CWGC grave - a grave where the man is actually buried and which is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Usually such graves are marked with the typical CWGC headstone. These are identified on the parish page but the reference is to the cemetery in the 4xxx series
  • Family grave - a grave of members of the family but which includes a reference to a man who died referred to by the cemetery reference in the 4xxx series.
  • Private Memorial - a memorial to one or two individuals which was erected by the family or friends of the individual - listed in the 6xxx series

 

Where a list of men who

BWM0000 18/9/2011