Sculpture commemorates WW1 impact on town

A memorial has been unveiled in a town which was heavily affected by the Battle of the Somme in World War One.

About 80% of 720 men in the 11th battalion East Lancashire Regiment, known as the Accrington Pals, were killed or wounded in the first half-hour of the battle on 1 July 1916.

A sculpture by John and George Everiss, called Deeply Regret, has been unveiled in a pocket park in Accrington's Avenue Parade Gardens, depicting a woman and a child in front of a sign saying "Darling, be home soon".

Hyndburn mayor Noordad Aziz said the garden was a "place to pause, reflect and remember".

About half of the battalion was recruited from Accrington, with the remainder coming from neighbouring towns, including Burnley, Chorley and Blackburn, which the Royal British Legion said made the area "the smallest town or borough in Britain to raise a complete battalion".

After training in the UK, they were initially posted in Egypt in 1915, before being sent to France to join an offensive with the aim of relieving the important French fortress of Verdun. This had been placed under siege by the German Army since February 1916.

The Battle of the Somme began early on 1 July 1916 and at 07:30 BST, the battalion left their trenches and advanced across no man's land towards the village of Serre.

They were met by machine gun and rifle fire from the German trenches.

Within half an hour, 235 men had been killed and 350 wounded.

When the roll was called for the Pals that evening, fewer than 100 men answered their names.

Approximately 72,000 soldiers from both sides of the conflict were killed, injured or missing within the first two hours of the battle.

It went on to rage for five months and resulted in more than one million casualties.

The mayor has spent the past week in France marking the 110th anniversary of the battle at a number of remembrance services at the Somme and Ypres.

He said it had been "especially poignant to return home and open a space dedicated to remembrance in the heart of our own town after spending the previous week remembering the sacrifice of the Accrington Pals".

"The new garden is more than just a green space," he added.

"It is a place to pause, reflect and remember, while celebrating the history and community spirit that make Hyndburn so special."

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