R Pascoe & Sons supplies a memorial to commemorate the fallen service personnel of Afghanistan
R Pascoe & Sons, which lays claim to being Cornwall’s largest monumental masons, was commissioned to source and supply the granite for the Bastion Memorial of Remembrance at the National Arboretum.
The memorial commemorates the fallen service personnel from the Afghanistan War. It has been erected at the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas, Staffordshire.
The memorial was supplied to one of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) preferred contractors, Young Johnson Ltd of Westbury. The MoD chose the granite, which it wanted to look similar to a memorial built by servicemen at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. Sourcing and supplying different samples of granite for inspection was carried out by Mark Pascoe, Managing Partner of R Pascoe & Sons, for approval by the MoD.
The choice was of two different granites from Portugal. The obelisk, die base and foundation base, walls and coping are polished Rosa Moncao, while the paving is flame textured Alpendurada.
The entire memorial was delivered to site with preparation and delivery carried out by David Pascoe, R Pascoe & Sons’ Senior Partner. His expertise, in conjunction with Nick Johnson of Young Johnson, saw all the stone placed in close proximity to its final position.
The memorial includes more than 25tonnes of stone and took 18 months to complete from inception to installation. The obelisk stands 1115mm high and is 800mm square at the base tapering to 350mm square at the top. The memorial stands on 144m2 of paving. The dedication wall consists of six slabs 2310mm x 3000mm x 30mm of main cladding, two 2310mm x 610mm x 30mm for the ends, three 3000mm x 610mm x 50-30mm copings, six 300mm x 3000mm x 50mm bottom cladding with a 15mm chamfer on the outer edge.
R Pascoe & Sons, established in 1947 and now with offices and a showroom in Camborne and a quarry and factory near Helston, has made other memorials for the National Memorial Arboretum – the Palestine Police Memorial, The Sultan of Oman Armed Forces Memorial, the Forrester’s Friendly Society Memorial, the Kenya Police Memorial and the King’s Hussars Memorial.