Photo: Chris Noble
Cundall
Yorkshire
Cundall is a small village to the east of Ripon, just a mile or two on the eastern side of the A1(M) road. It's very close to another Thankful Village, Norton-le-Clay.
Photo: Chris Noble
The church at Cundall is dedicated to St. Mary and All Saints. As far as we are aware, there are no memorials relating to the Great War inside the building or anywhere in the village, apart from the inscription referred to below.
Chris Noble visited Cundall for us and took the photographs which you see on this page. He did this after visiting Norton -le-Clay, which is very close by. While at Norton-le-Clay he discovered a war memorial plaque mentioning a Belgian lady who had lived in a house there. Research has shown that the lady, who died in September 1915, was buried in the churchyard at Cundall. See the Norton-le-Clay page for further details.
Here at Cundall, Chris Noble discovered another little mystery. In the churchyard is the grave of a Mrs. Yates, and on the "back" of the plinth on which the memorial cross stands is the inscription,
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Also Her Son Soldiers Died in the Great War records this soldier as 4876 Sgt Thomas Yates, 11th Battalion, the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, who was Killed in Action on the 9th July, 1916. He was born at Holborn, Middlesex and enlisted in Warley, Middlesex. A supplementary note confirms the award of the Military Medal. There is no record of Sgt. Yates's place of residence. Sgt. Yates also appears in the Commonwealth War Graves Commision records. He has no known grave and is commemorated by name on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing, Somme France. The record contains no personal details. On the day of Sgt. Yates's death, his battalion was in forward positions near the village of La Boisselle, having taken up positions there on the 8th. They were relieved from the front-line on the 11th, and the Battalion Diary records that between these two dates they had 170 casualties due to enemy shell-fire. Sgt. Yates must have been one of these. |
It is not unusual for soldiers who died in the war to be commemorated at home on their parents' graves, even if they are buried elsewhere. Research is continuing to try to establish Mrs. Yates's link with Cundall.
