Lees, Cross Roads and Bocking war memorial
Cross Roads Primitive Methodist Sunday School
The Sunday School memorial would have been located in the old building on Halifax Road near Cross Roads. The building is still in use as a private business today, but when the Sunday School closed many years ago, the memorial was removed and as far as we knew it was in storage at Keighley Library’s archives.
Some time after this we understand that it was water damaged and began to fall to bits, so the photographs were removed and placed in an archive box.
After six years of searching, finding, badgering and begging, we finally managed to get the Cross Roads Primitive Methodist Sunday School war memorial in it’s new home next to the main Bocking, Cross Roads and Lees war memorial, which is inside the bowling club in their park.
Men of Worth Director Ian Walkden left no stone unturned in his search for the old memorial which we only knew about from a rather fuzzy photograph in an album in Keighley Library:
The album records most of the local war memorials, and we understand that a lot of the photographs were supplied by Mr P.D. Lodge who we knew had done a tremendous amount of work in this regard, he should be recognised for his efforts.
A couple of years ago (in 2015) one of the library staff members contacted Ian saying they had found the photographs! Apparently the memorial was water damaged and fell to bits but someone had the foresight to save the photographs and label them up with the names of the men pictured. They were discovered in a box during archiving work in the library.
Ian then set about asking favours from friends, including Robert Riley of R & J Riley Joiners who agreed to build the new solid oak frame, while M. J. Framing on High Street supplied the glass, cut and made the mount for the photographs, and assembled the sections. Local lady Sheila Butler very kindly carried out the calligraphy of the men’s names and regiments.
On Saturday 8th January 2017, in a short ceremony at M. J. Framing in Keighley, the re-created memorial was presented to Councillor Tito Arana (Haworth Cross Roads and Stanbury Parish Council) who is also Chairman of The Friends of Cross Roads Park and he agreed to become the new custodian of the memorial.
Unveiling of the new memorial in it’s new home at Cross Roads:
After obtaining relevant permissions, the memorial was installed, and unveiled on Saturday 11th February 2017 in the Bowling Club/War Memorial building in Cross Roads park and reported in Keighley News and on their website here.
Tito thanked those who helped with the project, including staff at Keighley Library, Robert Riley of R & J joiners for building the frame, M. J. Framing in Keighley for doing the hard work of putting it all together and finally, Sheila Butler for her wonderful calligraphy work.
He also said: “May I say from the bottom of my heart that I thank them for bringing this wonderful replica back to the village that these lads chose to fight for and helping ensure their faces will be remembered for many generations to come. As a village we are truly honoured and we can now see the faces of some of the men that feature upon our main war memorial.”
The new memorial will now be recorded for posterity with the Imperial War Museum, who hold a National Inventory of all war memorials.
