THIS week we take a look back at some Wyre Forest nostalgia with treasured memories from Kidderminster Historical Society’s Peggy Guest.
George Brown and Sons, Monumental Sculptors, was established in 1830 by George Brown who came initially from Scotland to work on Thomas Telford’s Bewdley Bridge.
Archie Brown, Peggy’s grandfather, took over the business from his grandfather George.
Peggy, whose mother was Vera Summers née Brown, often visited the stone yard, now sadly under St George’s Park and the Ring Road, to watch the huge lumps of stone put onto a large structure on railway lines.
This machine cut the moving stone with an enormous saw, operated by Harry Greaves, the firm’s blacksmith who stood in a tiny hut which Peggy recall bobbed up and down with the movement of the machine.
She also loved to watch the masons in their workshops pencilling the designs which they then carved.
Archie, who was very lame following his time in World War I, would be found in his office puffing on his pipe whilst producing designs for the masons to carve.
Among the sculpture work by George Brown and Sons was a memorial remembering those who gave their lives in World War I in a striking location near St Michael’s Church overlooking the Clent Hills in Brierley Hill.
It was based on a design by Councillor J T Fereday and filled out by Francis Lane, a local preacher and industrialist.
The memorial, unveiled in 1921, consists of a square column on a stepped base with the names of 203 men on three faces.
Send your nostalgic Kidderminster photos and memories to james.reece@newsquest.co.uk.
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