Qualla: Chepstow War Memorial

Chepstow War Memorial: Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Clive Perrin, CC BY-SA 2.0. The cannon does not belong here. Beside the elegant Neoclassical column in Beaufort Square, a heavy iron deck gun sits low to the ground, its dull metal at odds with the dressed stone and the gentle Welsh light. It was lifted off a German U-boat, SM UB-91, in 1918, and George V himself ordered it sent to this small Monmouthshire town. Not as a trophy. As a thank-you, of a sort - because a sailor from Chepstow had done something the British Empire had decided was unforgettable, and the king wanted Chepstow to remember.

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Image: Clive Perrin | CC BY-SA 2.0

Chepstow War Memorial: A Sailor Named Williams

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Louise Rea at Chepstow Racecourse, CC BY-SA 3.0. Able Seaman William Charles Williams grew up in Chepstow. On 25 April 1915, he was aboard the converted collier SS River Clyde as it ran ashore at V Beach, Gallipoli, under withering Ottoman machine-gun fire. The plan called for lighters to be lashed together as a bridge from shi...

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Image: Louise Rea at Chepstow Racecourse | CC BY-SA 3.0

Chepstow War Memorial: A Column for the Town

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Helen Steed, CC BY-SA 2.0. Eric Francis, son of a Chepstow solicitor, came home to design the memorial. He had trained under Guy Dawber and Detmar Blow, two of the most respected Arts and Crafts architects of the day, and what he produced for his hometown was unusual: a two-stage stone column topped by an ...

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Image: Helen Steed | CC BY-SA 2.0

Chepstow War Memorial: Unveiling Day

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Neil Owen, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 8 January 1922, the town gathered in Beaufort Square. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Ariel Evill, a local solicitor who had commanded the 1/1st Monmouthshire Regiment in France, unveiled the column. The deck gun was unveiled by Williams's sister, Frances Smith, with Captain Edward...

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Image: Neil Owen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Chepstow War Memorial: The Gun That Almost Was Lost

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andy Dingley, CC BY-SA 3.0. By the centenary of the Armistice in 2018, the German naval gun was in poor shape. Decades of Welsh weather had rusted its iron and chipped its paint, and the local press took the town council to task. Restoration followed. The gun is back to a respectable condition now, the colu...

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Image: Andy Dingley | CC BY-SA 3.0