Waggoner Memorial

Sykes was the son of Sir Tatton Sykes, 5th Baronet. He served in the Princess of Wales' Own Yorkshire Regiment in the Boer War and later as lieutenant colonel of the 5th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment. He was MP for the local constituency of Kingston upon Hull Central from 1911 to his death in 1919. He inherited the baronetcy on his father's death in 1913. The 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement is named after him. Sykes received permission to raise the Wagoners Special Reserve as a Territorial Army unit in 1912, signing up farm labourers and tenant farmers from across the Yorkshire Wolds for war service as drivers of horse-drawn wagons. Sykes held wagon-driving competitions for his wagoners. During…

The memorial is to the west side of Sledmere, north of St Mary's Church, and near the Sykes residence at Sledmere House. It was designed by Sykes, and is said to be based on a Saxon memorial in the crypt at York Minster. It stands 6 ft high, with an octagonal plinth of five steps leading up to squat stone column of Portland stone, with stone carvings, with conical canopy and pinnacle, once topped by a cross (now lost). The central column is surrounded by four narrower columns, supporting a carved entablature, and inscription on the frieze. The masonry was built by Alfred Barr and the naive art sculptures made by Carlo Domenico Magnoni, curving around a central column in three sections,…