THE long forgotten work of the men and women who re-trained problem horses for the army in the First World War has been immortalised in a new memorial.
The sculpture, made from horseshoes, overlooks fields at Purton where the animals grazed in the weeks before they were transported to the horrors of the Western Front and other foreign battlefields.
The poppy-shaped memorial was the idea of RAF serviceman Bob Lloyd, who has been researching the county’s First World War history. Seven years ago he had started trying to research names on the village war memorial when he discovered there had been a civilian-run remount depot at Manor Farm in Purton.
“Nobody in the village was aware of this particular story,” he said.
“There was no remembrance of the animals or the people who worked there.” Information was sparse but five years ago he found Mary Smith, a descendant of William Robson, the man who ran the depot with the help of his two sons. A box of documents she had provided a glimpse into the difficult and sometimes dangerous work he had done for the country.
It told of horses and mules that were unmanageable or vicious being sent to the depot from all over the country. Others came in from North America.The techniques Mr Robson and his men used were praised by senior officers. “The methods applied to these wild and vicious horses appeared to be extraordinary successful, besides being most cleverly devised and humane,” wrote Lt Col Merrick Burrell in 1918.
What happened to the animals after they went to war is unknown. Britain lost nearly half a million horses and most never returned from the conflict.
“We know about the horses coming in, but where they went to and their ultimate fate we don’t know a lot about that. It is one of the aspects that is overlooked,” said Mr Lloyd. So he commissioned sculptor Daren Greenhow to make a simple memorial. “It was an opportunity to put right a 102-year-old oversight.”
Some of the shoes were made in 1915 for the army, others were donated from people in Purton. They can be seen in the grounds of the Pear Tree.
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