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On the iron gates are the words: IN MEMORIAM 1914 - 1918
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Wigsley
Nottinghamshire
Although only seven miles West of the ancient city of Lincoln, the village of Wigsley is actually just inside the County of Nottinghamshire, set amidst the farms and fields of the flat agricultural landscape known as the East Nottingham 'sandlands'. The land use here has long reflected the quality of the soil and is largely arable, with sugar beet and cereal generally favoured. The village was recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086 as 'Wigesleie', which derived from the Old English personal name of 'Wicg' and the word 'leah' meaning 'a clearing' - thus 'Woodland clearing of a man called Wicg'.
On the outskirts of the village are the remains of RAF Wigsley; a satellite airfield of the much larger RAF Swinderby. It remained operational until 1958. The old control tower still stands guard, a gaunt and silent witness to past deeds of heroism. It was here at this airfield back in the dark days of 1943 that a young Scottish Flight Lieutenant William Reid undertook his conversion course to Lancaster Bombers and subsequently went on to win the Victoria Cross in a bombing raid over Dusseldorf.
Wigsley shares the Parish Church of St Helen in the nearby village of Thorney, where the church gates form a memorial to the Great War. On the gateposts are the names of the men of the Thorney section of the Parish who lost their lives:
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On the iron gates are the words: IN MEMORIAM 1914 - 1918
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| It was the author Arthur Mee who identified Wigsley as one of the villages that suffered no fatalities in the Great War of 1914-1918. Over seventy years later when we visited Wigsley in 2007, we met the oldest resident. Mr Street was born on Christmas Eve 1915, the year after British and German troops played football in 'no man's land' in the Frelinghien-Houplines sector of the Western Front. He has lived all his life in the village, only leaving to fight the King's enemies during the Second World War and has always known of Wigsley's status as one of the villages blessed with no Great War fatalities. Mr Street is Wigsley's last living link with those days and was very happy to be associated with an enterprise that both remembered and celebrated the fact that his long time home was in a truly 'Thankful Village'. |
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