World War I Memorial, Stow Hill, Newport
This memorial which has been here for a number of years was restored for the centenary of the 2nd Battle of Ypres on 8th May 2015. This was done with the assistance of CADW, the Heritage Lottery Fund, the War Memorials Trust and through public donations.
A large two-metre-high wooden sculpture was added to the memorial on this occasion. The sculptor was Chris Wood from Caerleon and the wood came from a local cedar of Lebanon tree. The carving depicts the six-day Battle of Frezenberg Ridge, Ypres, which started on May 8, 1915 and saw more than 80 soldiers from the First Monmouthshire Battalion lose their lives. This scene is taken from a painting in Newport Museum and Art Gallery.
The plaque on the original memorial states:
Here stood Stow Hill Drill hall. from which sallied Newport's own territorial soldiers, the First (Rifle) Battalion the Monmouthshire Regiment to fight for Britain at the outbreak of two world wars.
They wrote the saddest yet most glorious chapter in Newport's history on May the 8th 1915, when in an heroic stand against great odds before Ypres, the Monmouthshire's helped to bar the Germans from the vital channel ports. Of their strength of nearly 500, only 129 officers and men survived.
