80958

 

II  

Designated  

11/03/2003  

11/03/2003  

The War Memorial, screen walls and surrounding railings  

 

Merthyr Tydfil  

Pant  

 

 

306564  

209019  

 

On the NE side of Pant Road some 220m SE of Christ Church.  

Commemorative  

 

War memorial to 15 dead of First World War, 1926, pillar-type memorial with 3-sided screen wall behind, in finely carved pale ashlar, heavily scoured with some erosion of detail in late C20 cleaning. Designed by the curator of the local museum, this memorial was unveiled in 1926 by Maj-Gen Sir Thomas Marden.  

War Memorial, ashlar, square plan, base, shaft and carved top feature, set on 3 steps. Base with top moulding, plain high square shaft with ogee-moulded cornice. Carved crowning feature is a cube with cross in relief on each face, relief laurel wreath, and Prince of Wales feathers, the feathers incised onto cube faces with 3-dimensional tops curving over upper edges of cube. Small recessed top feature with coved square pedestal carrying royal crown. Shaft has metal plaque 1914-1918 attached and base another for 1939-45 war. Relief crosses of top feature have 1914-1918 incised. Screen wall of similar stone in 3 canted sections each with outer pilasters on pedestals with carved capitals. Walls between pilasters have mouldings at top of pedestal level, and at level of base of capitals, defining frieze under dentil cornice. The frieze is finely lettered in 3 sections: Greater love hath no / man than this that a man lay down / his life for his friends. Rear of screen wall is of tooled grey limestone. Whole memorial is on platform up 3 grey limestone steps flanked by 2 ashlar low piers with plinths and caps each side with short ramped wall between. One further low pier each side in line with upper pier of steps. The memorial is enclosed by iron railings on rock-faced stone low coping. A length about 15m then gate screen at right angles with fixed outer gates with down-curved top-rail and scroll work and double centre gates similar but the top-rails down-curved to meeting stile. Stanchions have small ball finials. Another length of railings of about 15m runs at right angles downhill to right, the railings in stepped sections.  

 

Included for its special interest as an unusually well-designed local war memorial.