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Lowton St Mary’s Church - War Memorial

 

The war memorial at St Mary’s was unveiled in July 1921 to remember the 38 parishioners who had died. A large number for what was, at the time, only a small village. The parish itself only formed after 1850 when Knott’s Mill brought Anglican families into the area and services were held in what is now the Church Inn opposite. But land was donated by a local M.P. and the church was completed in 1860. The villagers turned out en masse to pay their respects to the men whose names were engraved on the stone and to support their grieving churchwarden and neighbour, Mr Charles Guest of The Elms on Newton Road.

 

The Vicar of St Mary’s invited Mr Guest, a man of private means, to unveil the memorial as he lost his only son, Private Charles Henry Travers Guest in the war. Charles junior was only 21. His father explained that he had had mixed feelings about accepting the invitation - feelings of pride tempered with pleasure and sorrow. He was very aware that for others, like himself, the ceremony would reap up ‘past memories of sorrow, shattered hopes and plans upset.’ But he said that the memorial had been erected in a very appropriate place for if there had been no war nine-tenths of the men named on the memorial would have been buried in the churchyard. Charles Guest made his money from cotton and would have known other notable businessmen in Leigh of the time including George Shaw who was the last tenant of Pennington Hall. We will now proceed to Pennington Hall Park.

 

Image of a thatched cottage and Lowton St Mary's.