This Is Cheshire

WORK BEGINS ON HERO'S SCULPTURE

From the Guardian Series, first published Thursday 4th Oct 2001.

SCULPTOR Nigel Weaver is hoping to unveil a dramatic memorial to war hero George Eardley next spring.

Nigel has started the process of creating a six-foot high statue of Sgt Eardley, Congleton's only holder of the Victoria Cross.

It will sit on an eight-foot base, making it a striking landmark in the centre of Congleton for generations to come.

Sgt Eardley earned the VC during the Second World War when he single-handedly took out three enemy machine gun posts.

The statue will show him racing across a battlefield about to throw a grenade at the German lines, having run out of bullets for his machine gun.

Congleton's community garden in Lawton Street is earmarked as the home for the statue, which is costing £20,000 to create, and will be cast in bronze.

Nigel is from Swettenham Close, Alsager, and is to create the statue from clay at the Alsager campus of Manchester Metropolitan University.

It will then be transported to a foundry in Birmingham for casting.

The memorial is the brainchild of Sgt Eardley's son Roy, from Walfield Avenue, Congleton.

"There is much excitement and interest in the project at the university, and the dean has asked to be kept up to date with the work," said Mr Eardley.

He and Nigel are to visit a regimental museum in Shrewsbury to check details for Sgt Eardley's uniform.

Donations to the project can be made to Congleton VC Memorial Fund, and sent, C/O town clerk John Herod, to Meadowside, Congleton.

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