EASTCOTE WAR MEMORIAL

When Mr & Mrs Benjamin hall were owners of Field End Lodge, now Tudor Lodge Hotel, Eastcote, during the First World War, they allowed it to be used by the military as as a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) hospital. Many local girls became volunteer nurses to care for the wounded. 

In 1917 the Halls obtained permission to erect a small war shrine near the hospital on the patch of grass in the centre of the junction of Field End Road with Bridle Road. This shrine, reputedly made of timber from HMS Britannia, cadet training ship at Dartmouth till 1903, was dedicated by the Bishop of Kensington. It commemorated six Eastcote men who had been killed in the war. 

This shrine was replaced in 1922 by a stone memorial cross, presented to Eastcote by Benjamin and Annie Hall. But the site was proving unsuitable and the memorial suffered damage from traffic, including a bus. Consequently in 1929 a memorial garden was laid out further along Field End Road, opposite Field End Farm by Messrs Eborn of Northwood and the cross was re-erected here. Two plaques name the Eastcote men who lost their lives; sixteen in the First World War and nine in the Second. A third plaque commemorates all the Eastcote men who served in HM Forces, the voluntary helpers and the wounded who passed through Eastcote VAD hospital. 

The original wooden shrine can now be found in the north aisle of St Lawrence Church, Eastcote. 

(Reproduced from The Home Front, Ruislip Northwood and Eastcote Local History Society 2007)