page_title: Royal Wootton Bassett
section_title: War memorial
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Wootton Bassett / Culture / War memorial
caption_attribution_description: Photo taken on 16 November, 2010; following yet another Repatriation through Wootton Bassett.
context_page_description: Royal Wootton Bassett, formerly Wootton Bassett, is a small market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, with a population of 11,043 in 2001, increasing to 11,385 in 2011. Situated in the north of the county, it lies 6 miles to the west of the major town of Swindon and 10 miles northeast of Calne.
  From 1447 until 1832 Wootton Bassett was a parliamentary borough which elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons. In 1832 it was deemed a rotten borough and abolished by the Great Reform Act.
  The town was granted royal patronage in March 2011 by Elizabeth II in recognition of its role in the early-21st-century military funeral repatriations, which passed through the town. This honour was officially conferred in a ceremony on 16 October 2011 – the first royal patronage to be conferred upon a town since 1909.
context_section_description: The town previously had war memorials in the form of a memorial garden in the cemetery and the memorial hall on Tinker's Field. In October 2004 a new memorial was unveiled in the town, a simple pedestal topped by a bronze of hands holding up a globe. The opening was the culmination of a five-year publicity and fund raising campaign, initiated by local resident Jay Cunningham who felt that the garden and hall were not prominent enough. The design of the memorial was by Lance Corporal Alan Wilson of the Wootton Bassett army cadets, chosen by public vote, and then sculpted by local artist Vivien ap Rhys Price.
caption: War Memorial
exif: {"Image Copyright": "\u00a9 Patrick C. Bohan 2010"}