Neston Royal British Legion

General information

A social focus of a different kind developed after the First World War, in the British Legion. It was reported in 1919 that 841 officers and men from Neston had served in the war of whom 91 were killed (and are named on the war memorial erected in 1920).

One of the fallen was Lt Col Christopher Bushell, who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross in 1918, and was a grandson of the Bushell whose memorial fountain stands at Neston Cross.

Many of the returning soldiers became Comrades of the Great War — one of several associations which merged in 1921 to form the Neston British Legion. They were launched financially by Colonel Harrison of Derma Hall, who provided them with a hut on the field next to the parish church, hitherto known as Church Field, but then to be known as Comrades Field. Col Harrison sold the field to the church in 1919, but it remained as a football field for the Comrades. In due course the Legion acquired the Congregational chapel and land next to the Institute in 1946. The New Club House was built around it in about 1966, where it stands today.

Neston Royal British Legion is a long established Branch and has the distinction of having four VC holders, earned in the Boar War and the First and Second World Wars, who resided within its bounderies.

The present Branch building is two-storey and enjoys the benefit of a large carpark.

The Branch commitee is proud of the esteem in which it is held within the community and is ready and willing, within the financial constraints it has to contend with, to assist needy ex-Service men and women and their dependants.