Download – Elsrickle War memorial
The wee village of Elsrickle, in South Lanarkshire was recently made famous as being the village near the oldest known place of human activity in Scotland; Howburn Farm where people arrived from Denmark, by following reindeer over what is now the lower North Sea, and 14,000 years ago. They left their mark by leaving hundreds of flint tools on their camp site, in what is now a field. The Biggar Archaeology Group discovered the site (Ballin, Saville, Tipping & Ward 2010 and Saville and Ward 2010).
However, Elsrickle has another unique distinction, that of having two war memorials in the village. One is beside the now unused church at the bottom of the village, and commemorates four Privates, killed in various battles in WW I, while the other much smaller memorial is at the top of the village beside the main road for all to see, but one suspects few people will ever notice the fact, or wonder why this should be. The second memorial remembers a further two soldiers killed in WW I, but also another who was killed in WW II