FIELDS WE PROTECT

Belper Memorial Gardens are located centrally in Belper and contain trees, attractive planting and a number of benches. George Herbert Strutt, the cotton mill owner and philanthropist granted the land to the urban district council of Belper on condition that it would maintain the site as “pleasure grounds” and “place there a suitable cenotaph or monument”.

The focal point is the war memorial which is a white granite obelisk and was unveiled on 7th November 1948. It contains names of the 225 local men who fell during World War I. On 21st March 2018 a series of events was held in the town culminating in the unveiling of a Victoria Cross Paving Stone in the Memorial Gardens, exactly 100 years after Charles Edwin Stone won the Victoria Cross at Caponne Farm in France for “Most conspicuous bravery, initiative and devotion to duty under heavy gas and shell fire…”. The stone was laid in the centre of a flower bed planted in shape of the Victoria Cross.