Saturday 13 May 2017

Installation in memory of Harry Hoare completed at Stourhead

 We installed the last bits and pieces, a cannon and a toy car,  to the installation commemorating the life of Harry Hoare heir to the Stourhead. He was killed in November 1917 at Mughar Ridge in Palestine trying to rescue the horses in a battle with the Turks. The ridge was a vital spot on the route to Jerusalem. His parents received the news on Christmas Eve. We decided to commemorate him with a late Victorian nursery but there are intimations of the war which took his life at the age of 29.

There are now six installation at Stourhead the National Trust property in Wiltshire in the sculpture trail "Stourhead will never forget." This commemorates the effect of World War 1 on the community. We have commemorated Ebenezer Stone, a stable lad, who lost both legs in the war with a giant bike because he made his own before 1914. There is an installation showing a landscape morphing from Arcadia to Armageddon. We have commemorated Gallipoli and the Middle East where local men in the Dorset Yeomanry fought. A floating band recalls the entertainments for convalescent troops at Stourhead and also the scratch bands formed by soldiers on all sides  in the war.

The trail remains in place until November 2017,the centenary of Harry's death.A brochure is available at the visitor centre at Stourhead.