No . 132 The Trusty Servant called to the Bar . He was also a very well-connected young man . One of his grandfathers was Lord Salisbury , Prime Minister from 1886 to 1902 ; the other , Roundell Palmer ( Commoners , 1825-30 ), Gladstone ’ s great reforming Lord Chancellor , whose successful legal career established the family ’ s fortunes *. His father , the second Earl ( C , 1873-78 ) had been Governor of South Africa from 1905-1910 and was a Fellow of Winchester College from 1904-42 and Warden from 1920-25 .
As with so many others during the Great War , Robert Palmer ’ s parents were devastated by their son ’ s death . With his wealth , social connexions , and position as lord of the manor , the Earl was able to commemorate his loss in grander style than most of those similarly bereaved . His chosen architect was Herbert Baker . A number of things may have pushed them together . They had collaborated in South Africa , where the architect had a long and distinguished career . During Selborne ’ s time as Governor , he had designed the Union Buildings in Pretoria , the centre of government for the newly-formed Union of South Africa . Moreover , Selborne was familiar with the planning , from 1917 onwards , for the commemoration of the Wykehamist dead . Indeed , he was chairman of the committee which recruited Baker for the school ’ s own memorial . These collaborations , and Baker ’ s status as one of the three principal architects for the IWGC , were most probably the reason for Selborne asking him to design a memorial in Blackmoor , East Hampshire , where the family had been established since the 1860s .
The memorial that Baker designed for Blackmoor was , in effect , his first war cloister . Not a full cloister : it takes the form of an arcade on three sides , open to the south and made up of heavy timber framing , similar to , though more rustic than , the roof timbers of War Cloister . The roof is
of Horsham slates , not dissimilar in style and appearance to War Cloister ’ s Purbeck slates . Another echo of Winchester ’ s memorial is the cross at the centre of the garth . A wheelhead cross on an octagonal shaft rises from an octagonal plinth with a narrow , engraved , circular collar , much like the cross at the centre of War Cloister . In fact , this design of cross was originally submitted as a candidate for use in all IWGC cemeteries . Though Blomfield ’ s Cross of Sacrifice was universally adopted at IWGC sites , Baker continued to make use of variations of his own style wherever he was in charge of the design , at places as far apart as Delville Wood on the Somme battlefield , and St George ’ s church , Ramsgate . Charles Wheeler , Baker ’ s long-term collaborator and sculptor of the carvings in War Cloister , was responsible for the bronze plaques on the rear walls of the Blackmoor cloister .
Dedicated in 1920 , the story and style of the Blackmoor war memorial
Baker ’ s Other Cloister
cloister seem inextricably bound up in the story and style of our own . The connexions of personnel , form and design features are clear to see . And , beyond the purpose of recording the dead of the Great War , both cloisters shared a similar functional aim . Headmaster Rendall sought to make War Cloister a Via Sacra , a main thoroughfare along which the footsteps and voices of the living would echo among the names of the dead . The Blackmoor cloister was also intended to link the two worlds : the fountain in the back wall was meant for use by children from the schoolhouse just next door . A bronze plaque above the lion ’ s-head spout enjoined them to ‘ remember the names of the men from this village who fearlessly gave their lives for their country in the war of 1914-1918 .’ The aim of perpetual and active remembrance was built into both structures .
* The Lord Chancellor , 1st Earl Selborne , received Ad Portas in 1873 . See page 7
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