Virtually everything has been done on the site, with the exception of three new panels to be erected.
One of the cracked panels
We can exclusively reveal that the reason for the new panels was due to one of them cracking when being taken off a pallet last Monday.
This was due to an undetected fault in the Portland Limestone - unfortunately the heavy panel fell onto another and cracked that too!
Within an hour of it happening, Project Manager Steve Williams had arranged for new stone panels to be cut at the quarry in Portland in Dorset; they were then polished and despatched to the engravers in Hampshire on Thursday afternoon.
The engravers, Haven Memorials, pulled out all the stops and worked over the weekend to engrave the panels; they left their facility this afternoon (Monday) heading for Chorley – all within a week of the initial accident.
The panels will be installed on Tuesday afternoon or early Wednesday morning – to finally finish the job.
Whilst being engraved in Hampshire, the name of Private James Nelson was added to the bottom of the last WW1 panel. His family contacted the project on Monday, 29th October to tell us about him being killed at Ypres in 1917 – ironically, his brother, also a J. Nelson is on the memorial; both are also commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial in the Belgian town of Ypres.
Finally, a decision was made to re-cut a third panel – the one with “Other Conflicts”. Trustees made the decision to change it so that the names of the six men would be under their respective conflicts rather than in just alphabetical order.
Commenting on the ‘drama’, Steve Williams said: “These things happen and it was a question of rectifying things quickly. Both Portland Stone Firms and Haven Memorials were fabulous, dropping everything (no pun intended) to help us; we cannot thank them enough. As for the Stonemasons, they were naturally very upset with what happened but as I said to everyone - ‘Keep calm and carry on’.”
Chorley Remembers Chairman Lindsay Hoyle MP said: “I was in Parliament when advised of what had happened and I knew Steve would just calmly deal with everything, which he did. May I place on record my thanks to him and of course to Portland Stone Firms and Haven Memorials for helping us at such short notice.”
Last word from Steve Williams, who said: “Some good came out of the accident to the panels, for it allowed us to add a name to the memorial that we did not know about. I know the family of James Nelson are delighted and they will be at the new memorial on Remembrance Sunday.”
For the record, there are just some stone-chippings to be laid behind the memorial wall, and a final clean of all the stonework to do (work cleaning the memorial cross was completed today).
Chorley Council staff will be on site over the next few days to prepare everything ready for Remembrance Sunday.
Pictures of the completed memorial and site will appear here on Thursday evening.
