Plaques from Pembury War Memorial now at Pembury School
Burslem provided new plaques and carried out extensive cleaning on the war memorial at Pembury, a village located just outside Tunbridge Wells, Kent, last year.
The Memorial previously featured bronze plaques listing the names of those who lost their lives in WWI and WWII. These were installed in 1921 and 1949 after the two World Wars. The plaques were starting to look aged and tarnished and it was also discovered that there were some errors on the inscribed names and that one name was actually missing.
Burslem produced new hand-carved plaques in Portland stone, featuring the correct list of names of the local men and women who had lost their lives.
Rather than dispose of the old plaques, Pembury Council asked the Burslem team to install them in a prominent position on the side of the school, where they can easily be viewed by the pupils and school community. Burslem carried out re-shaping and renovation work before placing the plaques in their new home.
Local history enthusiast Mr Richard Snow spearheaded the campaign to replace the existing memorial and visited Pembury School this month to tell the children the story of the plaques. The children were fascinated to discover that many of the men whose names are on the plaques attended Pembury School and that one of the men, Herbert Brown, had a sister Rosie who taught at the school.
Read more about Burslem’s long heritage producing and maintaining public memorials and war monuments here.
