THE railings surrounding the Public Hall were almost certainly removed in the early 1940s and in all probability the cannon went at the same time (Memory Lane, Saturday, May 22).
Under wartime powers, the city council was responsible for commandeering and dismantling all railings and other forms of metal for the purpose of being melted down to manufacture munitions.
The handsome Victorian railings round Worcester Cathedral were an early casualty and I remember particularly how my father, who had taken meticulous care of railings outside our home in Victoria Avenue, was devastated when workmen arrived to tear them down.
For that he received the princely sum of half a crown compensation. But why were the ornate railings outside the Guildhall exempted? The council came in for much criticism over this.
Was it all really a desperate necessity, as we believed at the time? I recollect that years after the war a huge mound of scrap metal, mainly railings, remained an eyesore in the Midland Road railway goods yard.
JOHN HINTON,
Worcester.
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