Argyll and Bute Council’s plans to renovate the Victorian park in Helensburgh was boosted last week as the War Memorial Trust awarded the project the cash from its Centenary Memorials Restoration Fund (CMRF).

The grant will go towards the repair and renovation of the 40-foot memorial designed by distinguished architect Alexander Nisbet Paterson.

This Category-A listed war memorial includes a monument, reflection pool, ironwork gates, and sits within a walled garden – formerly the kitchen garden to Hermitage House.

Each element needs specialist repair work. The grant funding will support work to re-point, repair, and clean the stonework on the monument and the surrounding wall as well as the corroded bronzework.

Repairs to the reflection pool will make it watertight, whilst the ironwork on the entrance gates will also be restored.

The memorial site had been closed for some time due to vandalism but is now opened through the week and at weekends thanks to a partnership between the Friends of Hermitage Park Association and the council’s amenity services team.

Helensburgh and Lomond South councillor Ellen Morton, the council’s policy lead for Infrastructure, welcomed the funding. She also appealed for the public to come forward if they had information of the original design plans.

She told the Advertiser: “This is good news. This is a very significant war memorial and we are absolutely delighted funding has been secured to restore it.

“Alexander Paterson is a famous architect, particularly in terms of war memorials, and former resident of Helensburgh.

After the First World War he was commissioned to design a number of public war memorials and several for churches and companies. He won a competition to design our war memorial, as well as the one in Campbeltown. We are still searching for a copy of his original design plans for the Helensburgh memorial.” If anyone has any information about the plans, get in touch with Melissa Simpson on 01436 658989.

The council received confirmation from the Heritage Lottery Fund in January 2014 that the bid for a grant to regenerate the park had received first round approval.

This first round approval included a grant of £169,700 to carry out the development phase of the project. This has involved the ongoing development of a whole park plan, including proposals for the ‘A’ listed monument and memorial gardens, community consultation and investigative works to deal with flooding and erosion.

The finalised plan was submitted to HLF at the end of August, with the outcome of the £2,258,700 bid set to be announced by the end of the year.

Alexander Nisbet Paterson also designed the public war memorials in Luss and Rhu, which were made at similar times to the one in Hermitage Park.