Wartime Rotherwas Angel sculpture hoping for permanent home

The sculpture was made by art students in Hereford

A sculpture which honours wartime workers could be about to get a permanent home.

The 2m (6.5ft)-high Rotherwas Angel was commissioned by Hereford City Council in 2019 as a memorial to the workers of ROF (Royal Ordnance Factory).

It stood for a year in Hereford's skate park and was donated to the history group Rotherwas Together, but Covid-19 delayed plans for a permanent home.

If approved, it will sit between Skylon View and Beech Lane in Rotherwas.

Trees have already been planted at the site where it would stand on 1.2m (4ft)-high recycled concrete blocks, in the city's main area for new industry, if planning permission was granted.

An accompanying panel would explain about the former ROF while Rotherwas Together volunteers said they plan to run awareness events and create a walking route map and information leaflet to encourage people to visit it.

There were over 4,000 woman and nearly 1,000 men at Rotherwas

"We hope that the sculpture will provide a focal point for people walking and cycling through Rotherwas, and boost people's awareness of and pride in where they live and work," Angie Gibbs, chair of Rotherwas Together, said.

A campaign by BBC Hereford and Worcester had munitions workers, who at the peak of World War Two numbered over 4,000 woman and nearly 1,000 men at Rotherwas, recognised for their role in the Allied victory.

That work led to surviving munitions workers taking their place in the Remembrance Day parade at the Cenotaph in London for the past seven years.

The group said it was also using government funding to create a searchable archive of Rotherwas' wartime workers, and last month recreated clothing worn by munition factory workers more than a century for an exhibition at Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre.