Church Street, Eastwood NG16 3BS. Lost memorial. A number of churches have been built on this site. The church which was built in 1858 was destroyed by fire (arson) on 5 March 1963; only the tower surviving. In September 1967 the present brick, concrete and glass building, built on the same site, was consecrated by the Bishop of Southwell. The decision to erect a war memorial in St Mary’s was made in 1919 and the memorial, designed and executed by Messrs Jones and Willis of Birmingham, was installed in the church the following year. The memorial, an alabaster tablet measuring 4’6” by 2’6”, worked in vitreous mosaic, was designed for the south wall of the nave. On the left side of the tablet was a depiction of Christ as the Good Shepherd and on the right the names of the men who had died. Above these was the inscription, ‘To the glory of God and in memory of the men of Eastwood who fell in the Great War 1914-1919 AD’, and below, ‘Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ The layout of the nave was refigured as part of the memorial to the fallen and comprised a centre aisle and an alteration to the layout of the seating. The whole scheme was completed at a cost of just over £300. The memorial was dedicated on 22 September 1920. The service was conducted by the rector of St Mary, assisted by Rev ST Butler, the Congregational minister. The service was attended by many relatives of the fallen as well as public and local bodies including the Urban Council, police, local branches of the Comrades of the Great War and Eastwood Ambulance Training Corps. Major TP Barber DSO and his wife also attended the service. An article appeared in the ‘Advertiser’ the following day. ‘In the presence of a vast congregation – representative of every shade of religious and public thought – which overtaxed the seating capacity of the Church, the beautiful war memorial, which has been placed in St Mary’s Church, to the memory of the 74 sons of Eastwood who fell in the Great War, was last evening dedicated and unveiled by the Archdeacon of Nottingham.’ The names on the memorial, which was destroyed in the fire, are also recorded on the memorial on Nottingham Road, Eastwood (WMA 89). Sources: ‘The fire stricken pulpit: a brief account of the four St Mary’s churches of Eastwood’, Arthur Coleman, and Southwell and Nottingham Church History Project.