FIRST CIVIL WAR BATTLE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 116, 1 March 1950, Page 5

FIRST CIVIL WAR BATTLE

MEMORIAL UNVEILED WARWICK. ' Lord Willoughby de Broke, Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon unveiled a memorial to the battle of Edgehill. which began at 3 o’clock on Sunday. October 23, 1642. The memorial was built by Warwickshire County Council on a suggestion by Birmingham Archaeological Society, as it was feared that since the site of the battle had been included in a permanent military camp, local traditions relating to the site might be lost. Two stones have been put up. They are of Hornton stone, quarried about two miles from Edgehill, and are Sift, ‘high and carved as columns bearing inscribed bronze plates. One is between Kineton and Radway, a corner of the coppice where those who fell in the battle are believed to have been buried. The other is on the Kineton-Edgehill road. The ceremony took place in pouring rain. Lord Willoughby de Broke said that 30,000 men fought in the battle, and he recalled the famous charge of Prince . Rupert’s cavalry, which might have won the day for the Royalists had they not stopped to plunder a village bakery, and given the Parliamentarians time to re-as-semble their forces.

The Bishop of Coventry, Dr. Neville Gorton, who dedicated the memorial, read the prayer said before the battle by Sir Jacob Astley: “Oh, Lord, thou knowesf how busy I must be this day; if I forget thee do not thou forget me.” Detachments of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and the Warwickshire Yeomanry mounted guards of honour ,and buglers sounded the Last Post to end the ceremony.