War Memorial Crescent (3) - story of the stones, Village Green, Kingston Bagpuize, Oxon

Image: © P L Chadwick Taken: 25 Feb 2018

This plaque on one of the stones tells their story and that of the Memorial. It reads: - Ancient Local Stones. These ancient stones were donated by Oxfordshire County Council and placed in position near Draycott Road in 1992 by Edmund Nuttall, Bypass Construction Engineers, at the instigation of Richard F. Cox, a local farmer from Southmoor, who wanted to create a Southmoor Henge. The five stones were taken from the land bordering Southmoor and Longworth at the time of the bypass construction, 1992/93, and retained to commemorate the new highway. They were also used as a boundary marker between land owned by St. John's College and land owned by Mr Cox. Archaeologists from the University Museum, Oxford, advise that these Corrallian limestone rocks are 150 million years old and were formed when grains of sand were deposited and cemented together by lime in what was a warm shallow sea that once covered present day Oxfordshire. In October 2012, with the agreement of the late Mr Cox's family, the stones were removed by Cliff Belcher and his sons to this new position to form the Kingston Bagpuize with Southmoor War Memorial - a natural and lasting tribute to those who sacrifice for their country and the freedoms we enjoy." Image Image

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