Hesleden War Memorial Unveiled

We were delighted this morning to go along to the formal unveiling of the new war memorial in Hesleden. Despite the dull and rather nippy autumn weather there was a tremendous turnout of an estimated 300 residents, visitors, local schoolchildren from Blackhall Colliery and Hesleden primary schools and representatives from the War Memorials Trust (NE), Royal British Legion and the Durham Light Infantry to watch the ceremony, which included an opportunity for local people to lay wreaths on behalf of their relatives.

The project to erect a memorial in the village was initiated just over a year ago by members of the Blackhalls Local History Group and involved a number of public participation events to ensure that residents had sufficient opportunity to choose where they would like the memorial to be sited (please see posts dated Wednesday 17 August 2016, Sunday 4 September 2016, Sunday 15 January 2017 & Sunday 22 January 2017 for more information about these events).


The memorial itself, which provides a comprehensive roll of honour of the fallen from Hesleden during both world wars, was designed and built by John Peace, the grounds manager for Monk Hesleden Parish Council. We were both delighted to be able to secure the funding for the memorial through the Area Action Partnership (AAP) Neighbourhood Budget Fund.


Refreshments were served after the event in the school room at Hesleden Methodist Chapel.


We would like to offer our sincerest thanks to everyone who came along this morning to make the ceremony such a special occasion for the whole community.