Chirk War Memorial

About

Chirk War Memorial is a war memorial in the Welsh town of Chirk, now in Wrexham County Borough (until 1974, Chirk was in the historic county of Denbighshire and then in the county of Clwyd until 1996). The memorial stands on a traffic island at the east end of Station Avenue, at its junction Church Street. It became a Grade II* listed building in 1998.

It was commissioned as a First World War memorial by Thomas Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden, tenant at Chirk Castle, and designed and made by the English sculptor Eric Gill. The memorial was unveiled in October 1920 by Lady Howard de Walden. A further inscription was added after the Second World War.

The memorial comprises a tapered square obelisk of Portland stone, standing on a low step which curves out to form a platform. The top of each face of the obelisk is carved into a pointed gable at 45-degree angles, with the ridges of the gables intersecting across the top of the memorial to create cross. The south face has a bas-relief carving of a soldier in profile facing east, in greatcoat and helmet, hunched forward over his rifle and bayonet, above the main inscription which reads: "TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE / HABITANTS AND...