In St Leonard’s Church at Holwell there are two wall plaques, engraved: ‘Those who gave their lives’ in the Great War (1914-1918) and ‘Those who served’. These plaques were originally in The Old Methodist Chapel and were moved to the Church when the Chapel was converted into a house.
On the six soldiers who gave their lives, we were able to find some information online, principally in the National Archives military records and the 1901 & 1911 Censuses. Unfortunately, the majority of the military personnel records for the First World War were destroyed or damaged, ironically in an air raid on London in the Second World War.
We found three other soldiers born in Holwell and who died in the War, not listed on either plaque. This is probably because they and their families moved away from Holwell before the start of the War. Nevertheless, we have included them here because we cannot be sure they are not commemorated elsewhere.
Click on the links to view the information on each of our soldiers.
We very grateful to the surviving descendants of the Holwell soldiers still living in this area who have shared photographs, letters and medals. These personal items add a deeply affecting human dimension to the official records and bring home how young these men were.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Holwell Village 
My name is Chris I live in holwell iv only bin here for 2/3 years but I love to know what holwell was like in the war first and second haw things wos the layout etc dus eney one have eney old maps or direys or know wot it wos like please email
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Hi Chris thanks for your interest in this website and ‘old’ Holwell. Yes, I do have a hand-drawn map of the village in the 1920’s I think, showing which families lived in which houses. Holwell was a fair bit larger then because there were a lot of workers associated with the iron mine. When I get some time, I’ll try and update this website with this map and other information I can collect
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Your site a great idea and most interesting. Please save all the information you have dug out in a format that it will be able to be accessed for years to come – at County Archives perhaps. Good to see the church with its roof on!
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Any maps of the village on the 20s on wards and I don’t surpose there is any one who new the Johnson’s as my dad was David and I would love to see we’re he grew up as a child many thanx
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