Highfield Park in St Albans will be commemorating hospital workers who fought in the First World War thanks to a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The park’s trust received two grants totalling £8,300 for two heritage projects. The first will reveal the history of the hospitals which previously occupied the site of Highfield Park by cataloguing and digitising archives, and the second will commemorate the contribution of Hill End Hospital staff in WWI.

Fourteen First World War soldier silhouettes will be on display at the park’s Hill End Hospital community garden, displaying information about the 44 hospital workers who took part in the war. The silhouettes will line the route to a commemorative beacon, which will be lit on the evening of Sunday, November 11 as part of ‘Battle’s Over - A Nation’s Tribute’.

In the early 1920s Hill End Hospital received many casualties from the war, typically suffering from shell shock or gassing.