A MEMORIAL service was held on Friday 8th May at Chepstow's War Memorial to mark the centenary of those who fell in the Battle of Frezenburg Ridge.

The service was held to remember the county's worst day of the First World War, where the 1st Battalion of the Monmouthshire Regiment suffered heavy losses holding the line at Ypres.

Mayor Ned Heywood MBE laid a wreath at the war memorial, having also placed one at the regiment's memorial in Flanders last week, and photographs of that visit were laid out alongside the wreaths.

The men from Chepstow who died on that day, the 8th of May 1915, were Private Alfred Jones of 35 Lower Church Street, Rifleman Victor Bailey of 21 Green Street, Rifleman John Dade of 2 Hughes Crescent, Rifleman David Field of 4 Steep Street, Lance Corporal Thomas Griffiths of Chepstow, Rifleman Cyril Priest of 41 Bridge Street, Captain Claude Stanton of Mathern House Chepstow and Rifleman Francis Warman of Wye Bank House Chepstow.

"At the roll call the day after the battle, less than a hundred soldiers and three officers were fit for duty out of 500.

"A terrible day for Chepstow and I think we need to give thanks our political leaders that certainly in my lifetime, there has been no repeat of a war in Europe."