Crimean Gun

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Free-standing figurative bronze statue on two stage limestone plinth with bronze plaques, erected 1923. Located on the south side of Castle Street, facing north, set in a semi-circular railed site beside Castle Gardens.

Life-sized cast bronze winged female statue yielding a sword in right hand, wreath in left hand and balancing on one foot on a sphere (Victory). Square-plan painted stone two stage classical plinth with the upper stage clad in a rectangular bronze plaque to each side with a bronze egg-and-dart course at the base of the plaques, bronze dolphins to the lower corners and winged bronze infant heads to the upper corners. A deep moulding below rests on a slightly large stone plinth base.

Plaque to north reads:
“TO THE, GLORIOUS MEMORY, OF THE, MEN AND WOMEN, OF LISBURN, WHO GAVE, THEIR LIVES, IN TWO WARS, 1914-18. 1939-45”, with the stone plinth base inscribed with the words ‘SOMME’ and ‘THIEPVAL’
Plaque to east lists the names of fallen soldiers with a further list to the plinth base.
Plaque to south lists the names of fallen soldiers with the words ‘MESSINES’ and ‘YPRES’ inscribed on the stone plinth base.
Plaque to west also lists the names of fallen soldiers with a further list to the plinth base.

Monument is set on a stepped Travertine stone podium set within recently laid granite setts enclosed to Castle Gardens by spear-headed iron railings on stone plinth wall with pair of steel street lights having copper lanterns.

Historical information

The memorial is first shown on the ordnance survey map dating from 1939.

It was unveiled in April 1923, and replaced an earlier, temporary memorial which had stood in market square, roughly in the position that Nicholson’s statue (HB19/16/04) occupies today. The monument is the work of Henry Charles Fehr, an English sculptor of Swiss origin, who produced numerous busts, war memorials and bas reliefs and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. The memorial was initially dedicated to those who had fallen in the First World War but in due course the names of casualties from the Second World, Korean and Falklands Wars were all added. The memorial was rededicated in 2007.

Primary Sources

1.PRONI OS/6/1/68/5 – Fifth Edition OS Map 1939

Secondary Sources

1.www.friendsschoollisburn.co.uk
2.www.henryfehr.com

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

Winged bronze statue on stone and bronze plinth to the south of Castle Street, designed by Henry Charles Fehr. This well proportioned stone and bronze war memorial employs a neo-classical language to commemorate the First World War and its victims and has had victims of the Second World War and the Korean and Falkland Wars added to the memorial The memorial has group value with the other listed structures in the adjacent Castle gardens.