British Army 8th Division World War I Memorial

Heritage listing

Details 991/0/10062 QUEEN'S AVENUE 19-MAY-10 (East side) British Army 8th Division World War I Memorial II A commemorative memorial of the 8th Division of the British Army, erected 1924. Built of Portland stone with bronze ornament. Designer unknown. The memorial is in the form of a tall and slender cenotaph on a paved stone base surmounted by a bronze lion. The inscription on the front reads: 'To the glorious memory of all Officers, Warrant Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers and men of the 8th Division who fell in France and Belgium in The Great War 1914-1918'. The names of the divisional troops and regiments of the 8th Division are inscribed on the sides of the memorial. HISTORY: In 1852, 8000 acres of low cost heath at Aldershot were purchased as the site of the first permanent training ground for the Army, large enough to run regular summer exercises for 10 to 12 battalions at one time. Here the new railways could provide easy access to London, Dover and the main naval arsenals at Chatham, Portsmouth and Plymouth. In February 1854 work had started on the construction of the barracks, and by 1856 North and South Camps, (later to become Stanhope and Marlborough Lines), consisting of regular grids of wooden huts, had been erected. Permanent barracks, named the Wellington Lines, were built between September 1854 and 1859. The lack of a wall around the barracks, formerly considered necessary for separateness and security, was an innovation and emphasised the difference between Aldershot and previous barracks, with their civil policing role. Aldershot was the first of the large-scale camps, followed by Colchester and Shorncliffe, and it included some of the earliest examples of a garrison church, library and gymnasium. Today there are only isolated buildings, and the ove

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.