Captain E.M.S. Mackirdy had the memorial made primarily in memory of two young members of his family and included all the other Malmesbury men who had lost their lives in the war. The memorial is made of wood, in the form a roadside shrine, it has a wooden apex roof which protected the carved wooden cross and the names of the fallen. It was attached to the Tolsey Gate, the entrance archway which leads to the abbey, facing out to the Market Cross The angled wooden roof protecting the memorial from the worst of the weather. Set each side of the carved wooden cross were hinged glazed panels which contained the name of the fallen. The names were originally printed on card, then replaced by engraved brass panels, the names were set out at random and included each man's rank and regiment.
Captain Elliot Mackirdy Scott Mackirdy T.D. J.P. of Abbey House Malmesbury had been a mayor of Malmesbury. He served during the Great War and saw some of the worst fighting serving as a Captain in the Royal Horse Guards (The Blues), he was also a member of the King's bodyguard in Scotland, the Royal Company of Archers, and had held a commission in the Lanarkshire Regiment. His younger brother and a cousin were killed in the Great War. Both of these young men lived at Abbey House and took up their commissions in the Army from Malmesbury and returned to Malmesbury for their leaves from France. The younger brother, Lieutenant Charles Mackirdy's name is included on the town's memorials, but the cousin Captain Leopald Fawcett is not. The name of Lieutenant Charles David Scott Mackirdy, 11th Hussars, was included on the engraved plates but Leo Fawcett was not, but a
small brass plate was originally dedicated these members of the 'Mackirdy' family. The lower part of the memorial is a complex carving, which include the names 'L.G.R.E. Fawcett' and
'C.D.S. Mackirdy' on scrolls.
Beneath the name Mackirdy is the badge of the 11th Hussars, the Prince Albert's own, a carved pillar bearing the arms of Saxony rising from a coronet and crowned with another coronet from which rise five feathers A scroll under reads; 'Treu und Fest', (True and Faithful). Under the name Fawcett is carved a double headed eagle with a bell clasped in its left claw, the badge of the Lanarkshire Yeomanry.
Also included in the carving below the memorial is the motto of the Mackirdy family 'Dieu et Mon Pays: (God and my Country), with the family arms, a shield, a bird, a conifer tree and a sword.
This memorial was later taken into the abbey where it is mounted on a pillar just inside the building, the brass plate dedicating the memorial to Lt Mackirdy and Capt. Fawcett was removed and replaced with an engraved plate which reads;
THIS SHRINE, SACRED TO THE MEN OF MALMESBURY
WHO FELL IN THE WAR WAS GIVEN TO THE ABBEY
IN PLACE OF THE PROPOSED CHURCH MEMORIAL
THE FUNDS COLLECTED FOR THAT OBJECT HAVING
BEEN DEVOTED TO THE COMPLETION OF THE
MALMESBURY BOROUGH MEMORIAL CROSS
