Work starts to re-locate historic Doncaster town war memorial

Scaffolding has gone up around Bawtry war memorial on the Great North Road as workmen started the task of shifting the stone structure from its current ‘dangerous’ location, to a new safe site next to Bawtry Library.

Residents say the change of venue was first proposed around 30 years ago, because of concerns that the memorial was too close to the busy road.

It meant that remembrance events were difficult to do safely because of traffic.

Alan Claypole, of Bawtry Town Council War Memorial Working Group, has been involved with the efforts to get the memorial moved for much of that time, and said getting the planning permission for the grade-two listed memorial had always been a stumbling block.

He said: “All the planning approvals have been obtained. But because it is listed, you couldn’t just turn up in a van and move it. All sorts of planning permissions have had to be obtained.

“Now the concrete foundations have been put down near the library, the scaffolding is up on the memorial and it is being loosened so that it is movable.

“The timescale we are looking at would have it finished by the end of February. Work started on January 6.

“It was first suggested that it was moved 30 years ago. Obviously we are over the moon that it has got to the stage that we are at now.”

The memorial will be moved in two or three sections, on the back of a truck.

Under the plans for the memorial, there are also due to be three more names added.

Historic England’s description of the structure, which was built in the 1920s, states it was gifted to Bawtry Town Council by the owners of Bawtry Hall at the time, the Peake family, whose son was one of the men it commemorates.

The Peake's son, Lieutenant Raymond Peake, was one of the 36 local men who lost their lives in the First World War. Subsequently the names of three men who died in the Second World War were added.