War Memorial Restoration

We have been raising funds this year to restore Wanstead's war memorial.

Wanstead's impressive and beautiful war memorial sits in the High Street.  Installed in 1922 to mark the names of Wanstead's fallen in the Great War, it was added to after the Second World War and also contains the name of Royal Marine Thomas Curry, who died on active service in Afghanistan in 2007. 

The war memorial has been restored in the past, but now it is in need of significant works.  The bronze angel sculpture that sits atop of the memorial has been poorly maintained and this has affected the colouring of the Portland stone of the memorial itself, whilst the names of the fallen - recut on granite, probably in the 1960s - have now become worn in places.

The London Borough of Redbridge owns the memorial, but they have granted the Parish of Wanstead a licence to carry out works required.

We hope to raise sufficient funds for the memorial to be professionally cleaned and for the names cut in the memorial to be professionally repainted by an expert in war memorial restoration.

If we raise sufficient funds, it would be ideal for the stone to be repointed and the base to be repaired, with the poor quality paint and concrete 'repairs' removed, and the stone base restored.  This is an expensive job!

The costs of the project are as follows (quotes as of August 2025):

Professional cleaning of entire memorial:  £1,100

Metal stain remover:  £450

Restore all names on memorial:  £1,000

Repoint stonework:  £650

Remove black paint from steps and clean:  £1,650

VAT on above @ 20%

TOTAL including VAT:  £5,820

If you would like to contribute to the cost of repairing the memorial, please see our crowd funder:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/restore-wansteads-war-memorial