Plans to restore Lampeter’s war memorial designed and made by a Welsh sculptor who also created a memorial for the engineers who died on the Titanic have been submitted to the county council.
Lampeter Town Council is seeking permission to restore the Grade-II-listed 1921-built memorial, which overlooks the junction of the town’s College Street, Bryn Road, Station Terrace and North Road, using money from the Transforming Towns fund.
The project is part of Lampeter’s Place Plan “to retain the character of the town and attract vitality, by making full use of its existing assets, by ensuring that our town is attractive, and its resources are accessible to residents and visitors alike,” a supporting statement says.
The bronze statue by W Goscombe John is set within a raised terrace and boundary wall designed by Llewellyn Bankes-Price of Lampeter, erected to commemorate the memory of those killed in the First World War with details of those killed in the Second World War added later, on land donated by the Lloyd Brothers of ‘The Bryn,’ the community raising the funds for the erection of the monument, in memory of its fallen soldiers.
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The statement says the war memorial “is of national cultural significance as it was designed and made by W Goscombe John, who was a prolific Welsh sculptor, who received numerous national and international commissions, such as a memorial for the engineers who died on the Titanic and by Lord Leverhulme, to commemorate the Level Brothers Ltd employees, who fell in the First World War”.
The proposed works entail restoring the bronze statue and the stone plinth below, with all letters re-gilded.
This is the second application by the town council through the Transforming Towns scheme.
It recently submitted a call to restore the town’s Grade-II-listed Harford Square fountain, with funding from the Transforming Towns scheme.
The 1862-built fountain, a gift from J S Harford of Peterwell to the people of Lampeter, whose family lived at the Falcondale Estate, on the outskirts of the town, was built in 1862.
During preparatory examination of the fountain, a carving was discovered, of the name of Julian Cayo-Evans.
Julian Cayo-Evans, born in nearby Silian, is best known as the leader of the Free Wales Army, which had as its crest Eryr Wen, a stylised white eagle.
Both applications have now been submitted and will be considered by Ceredigion County Council planners at a later date.