Epsom, War Memorial 1924

Photo ref: 75374

More about this scene

The town was changing, and the old order was changing with it. 45 new residential roads were added to the street map in the 1920s. Some were built to provide decent accommodation for the working class. A first venture into council housing supplied 180 houses on the Ebbisham Road estate at the edge of the Common. But most of the new developments were suburban bungalows and semi-detached houses. The 1926 town guide Within months of the Armistice in 1918, people had begun to show their disillusion with the war, and with the ruling classes that had let it happen. When a meeting was held to discuss putting up a war memorial, hardly anyone turned up. The proposed design, an Eleanor Cross in the High Street, was supported by Lord Rosebery but vetoed by seven tradesmen. Each of them, they said, had a boy who died in the war, and they did not want a daily reminder of it. Rosebery protested that he too had lost a son, but the council turned the proposal down anyway. A private committee was hastily formed and at last, in 1922, the memorial was built fronting Ashley Road at the corner of the cemetery. The names of the 256 fallen were added the next year. The iron gates behind the memorial were added in memory of the University & Public Schools Brigade.