CeremoNy re-dedicates gardeN-fiNd avoNside war memorial

A war memorial dedicated to men employed by the Avonside Engine Company in Bristol was re-dedicated on November 11.

The ornate marble memorial was found buried in the undergrowth of a domestic garden in Bristol five years ago. With support from Historic England’s Heritage Schools Programme, it has been restored and mounted on a wall at St John’s Church, Fishponds, close to the former factory site. It lists 86 men, including nine who died and 17 who were injured.

The Avonside Engine Company was registered in 1864, and was placed in voluntary liquidation in 1934. Its assets and reputation (known as ‘goodwill’) were sold to the Hunslet Engine Company.

A previous occupier of the house had rescued the memorial when the factory was demolished in 1992 but had been unable to find a new home for it.

Initially building broad and standard gauge locomotives for customers in the UK and overseas, from 1872 until 1880 Avonside also built a good number of Fairlie articulated locomotives, the first of them being the Festiniog Railway’s 0-4-4-0T James Spooner. Four and six-coupled saddle tanks for industrial users predominated from the 1890s. Its compact

2ft gauge 0-4-0T design was used on the construction of Burnhope reservoir in County Durham, and those sold to slate quarries in Dinorwic (one, renamed Elidir) and Penrhyn (two, Marchlyn and Ogwen) are preserved. More than 50 standard gauge Avonside locomotives survive in the UK and overseas.