When driving over the Blackdown Hills to Taunton recently I
had to follow a diversion toward the tiny village of Thurlbear. Passing the Church of St. Thomas I was struck
by the unusual colour of its rendering, so I parked the car and went into the
churchyard for a look around.
The first thing I noticed was the plaque on the wall of the south
porch informing that the Church of St. Thomas is now in the care of The
Churches Conservation Trust having been declared redundant in 1988. Looking inside the porch I found, pinned to a
notice board, a leaflet giving a brief history and description of the
church. It tells us that St. Thomas’ is
a church “chiefly of the 11th to 14th centuries” and “It is constructed of
local blue lias limestone with dressings in Beer Stone (from East Devon) and
Ham stone (from Ham Hill). Most of the
exterior walls have been rendered although the rendering on the tower was
removed in the 19 century when the church underwent significant restoration”. Perhaps that explains the church’s
distinctive appearance.
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| The Church of St, Thomas in the village of Thurlbear, Somerset. |
While strolling around the tidily kept churchyard I came
across a modest gravestone, pictured below, with an inscription in memory of
Leonard C.W. Harding MC. Another
gravestone nearby, also pictured below, was that of Francis Job Hull who died
on July 7th 1910. On it there is an
inscription commemorating Arthur James Hull who was killed in action on 24th April
1917 aged 33. I decided to research how
Leonard Harding won his MC and where Arthur Hull was killed in action.
Leonard Charles William Harding was born in the coastal
village of Beer in Devonshire on 2nd November 1894, the son of Charles
Harding, who farmed at Bovey Barton, and his wife Mary.
He attended Ashburton and Colyton Grammar Schools and worked
on his father’s farm before being commissioned into the 8th Battalion of the
Devonshire Regiment in February 1916. He
accompanied the battalion to France on 6 December 1916. Harding was in action
on the 2nd April 1917 when the battalion took part in the capture of Ecoust St.
Main. He was in action again on 7th May;
taking part in a successful attack on Bullecourt. At the end of August the battalion moved to
Flanders. On the 4th October the battalion
was about to attack Polygon Wood, North East of Ypres, when a German artillery barrage
hit its assembly area. Harding was
wounded in the foot and evacuated to England where, after recovery, he joined
the 3rd Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment at Plymouth – he saw no further
action. It appears he must have been
awarded his Military Cross while serving in the 8th Battalion before its move to
Flanders.
According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website
Arthur James Hull is buried in the Doiran Military Cemetery in Greece. The cemetery is in Northern Greece close to
the Macedonian border near the south west shore of Lake Doiran. The cemetery contains the graves of 1,338
Commonwealth servicemen, 449 of which are unidentified, plus 1 French and 45
Greek.
Arthur James Hull served as a Private in the 10th Battalion of
the Devonshire Regiment, part of the British Salonika Force which landed in
Greece on October 5th 1915. Its mission, together
with French forces, was to deter Bulgaria from joining the Austro-German
offensive against Serbia. When this
deterrence failed Anglo/French troops helped the Serbian Army escape
destruction.
At the peak of its strength in March 1917 the British
Salonika Force was comprised of the 6 divisions of XII Corps and XVI Corps. Arthur
Hull’s battalion was part of the 26th Division, one of the 3 Divisions in XII
Corps.
In support of a Franco-Serbian-Italian offensive further
west, on the night of 24th/25th April 1917 XII Corps, using the 22nd and 26th Divisions, launched an attack on Bulgarian positions south west of Lake
Doiran. The area is a tortuous mass of
hills and ravines, ideal territory to defend.
The 10th Devons were tasked with assaulting the precipitous slopes of a
feature named Petit Couronne. Although
they gained a foothold in the Bulgarian lines, lack of reinforcements and
supplies together with enemy counter-attacks and artillery fire brought about a
withdrawal at 0400hrs on the 25th. That
night the two divisions suffered 3,163 casualties of which approximately 400
were members of Arthur Hull’s battalion; sadly it seems he must have been one
of those killed.
Sources:
Under the Devils Eye –
Britain’s Forgotten Army at Salonika 1915-1918, Alan Wakefield & Simon
Moody (Sutton Publishing Ltd., 2004).
Websites of interest:
