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St. Mary’s Church - War memorial

There has been a church on this site since around 1189 but the current church was rebuilt in 1873. Before the Great War, rank-and-file soldiers were buried in mass, unmarked graves with very few memorials to their memory. But the length, scale and impact of this conflict made people keen to remember those who had fallen and an estimated 100,000 British memorials were built, the majority paid for by public subscription. Many of them were erected in the 1920s including the Leigh Cenotaph in Church Street Gardens which was unveiled in October 1922, less than a month before the memorial in the church on the 5th of November 1922. General de Lisle of the Western Command was supposed to unveil the oak-framed bronze tablet. Described as ‘a brute’ he was best known for his blunt words after the Somme Offensive: "It was a magnificent display of trained and disciplined valour, and its assault only failed of success because dead men can advance no further." It is just as well then that he was needed at the War Office that day!

The Reverend F.H. Campion stated that the dedication probably wouldn’t be found on any other war memorial but he felt that there was no other text in the bible which was more suitable and appropriate: “It is enough that the servant be as his Lord” (St Matthew 10:25). He explained in his sermon that there had been times since the war ended when people wondered if it had been worth it but the most important thing was that the men had given their lives in the cause of duty just as Jesus had done before them. His words may have offered some comfort to those who had lost loved ones, but little to those who had returned to “the land fit for heroes” where the unemployment rate had reached 2.5 million.

We will now exit the church and return to the old Market Place then walk along Leigh Road until we are opposite the Thomas Burke pub.

Click here for a map for this part of the tour