Memorial erected for Sabden's war dead

5:55pm Tuesday 8th April 2008

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A LASTING memorial to those who made the supreme sacrifice has been erected in a Ribble Valley village - more than 60 years after the guns of World War II fell silent.

Campaigning villagers, led by amateur historian Simon Mount, have erected a Celtic cross in the middle of Sabden, to commemorate the lives of 72 soldiers who lost their lives in The Great War and battling Hitler's forces three decades later.

Down the years two rolls of honour, in the local primary school and parish church, had been dedicated to at least 50 of the known war dead.

And a wooden memorial, which has now been lost, is known to have existed along Whalley Road.

But Mr Mount, whose great-grandfather Simon, a former Coldstream Guard, lost his life in the Great War, was determined to search for the names of all of the Sabden soldiers who were killed fighting for their country.

"It all started off by asking about my great-grandfather, but then there were all these others who died as well," said Mr Mount, 45, of Sabden Brook Court.

After countless hours in dusty archives, and with the assistance of librarians across the county, but especially in Burnley, he came up with an exhaustive list of Sabden's war dead, 68 from the First World War and a further four from the Second World War.

His efforts may have remained unheralded but in 2004 the idea of a permanent war memorial was made by local resident Anthony Haworth at a village meeting.

Eventually the Sabden War Memorial Trust, headed by Mr Haworth, was created. A site for the memorial was chosen at the rose garden near the junction of Clitheroe Road and Whalley Road, and a major fund-raising exercise was undertaken.

Grants came from Ribble Valley Borough Council, Padiham Life, Bowland's Tourism Environmental Fund and Lancashire Rural Futures.

And money was handed over by groups, ranging from the Village Folk Variety group to Age Concern, Sabden Crown Green Bowling Club and Standen Estates and a number of private individuals.

The £17,000 raised bought a 9ft-high cross, from Ramsbottom-based stonemasons Richard Nuttall and David Greenhalgh, of Lancashire Stonecutters.

The memorial, installed by a specialist contractor, Andrew Rothwell, joins another stone, commemorating a much-loved local medic, Nurse Stephenson, who died in the early years of the 20th century.