Dunchurch Bus Shelter/War Memorial

Heritage listing

Details 1724/0/10047 DUNCHURCH THE GREEN Bus shelter/war memorial 07-NOV-07 GV II A thatched timber shelter, dating from 1949, erected as a memorial to the men of the village who fell in World War Two; it was built by local craftsmen to a design by Mr Castle, of the Warwickshire Rural Community Council. MATERIALS: The shelter is built from local ash and elm timbers, with a thatched roof of native fir thatched with reed. PLAN: The shelter is a simple rectangle on plan. EXTERIOR: The structure consists of upright rustic ash poles, clad to eaves height to the rear of the shelter, with wide, waney-edged elm boards, which rise to half-height on the front and to the sides of the shelter. The thatched roof is hipped, and has a decorative ridge. INTERIOR: The interior has a continuous timber bench running around three sides, and the underside of the roof is clad in softwood tongue-and-groove timber. HISTORY: The bus shelter was endowed by a local dignitary, Alderman A L Adkinson, JP, then Chairman of Dunchurch Parish Council, in 1949, as a World War II war memorial. Minutes from the Parish Council meetings of that year record the Alderman's proposal, and later, discussions on the style and positioning of the shelter, which was designed by a Mr Castle, Rural Industries Organiser for Warwickshire Rural Community Council. It was deliberately constructed using local materials in a style which reflected the local vernacular traditions of timber framing and thatch. The official opening took place on 14 December 1949, as part of a ceremony during which the Vice-Chairman of the Parish Council thanked the Alderman for his gift and formally accepted the bus shelter as a war memorial maintainable under the War Memorials (Local Authorities' Powers) Act 1923. The ceremony and dedication was

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.