Among the many Polish traces presented on our website (a complete list of sites is available in our catalogue), the catalogue also lists items not yet treated in detail. This entry gathers essential information on them.

Sign “Craftsmen at Work”, York
1955
Adam Kossowski

Adam Kossowski’s sign “Craftsmen at Work” dates from 1955. It is set into the façade of a shoe shop at 42 Goodramgate, York, and comprises three ceramic relief panels.

Solidarity Memorial, Leeds
1984

In Park Square, Leeds, the Solidarity Memorial is a tree planted in 1984. It was a gift from the city’s residents to workers affiliated with the Solidarity trade union. A plaque bearing the union’s distinctive logo stands before the tree.

Plaque to the pilots of No. 303 Squadron, Dungeness

A plaque at Dungeness, on the south coast of England in Kent, commemorates the Polish pilots of No. 303 Squadron who fought in the Battle of Britain. It specifically names Mieczysław Waszkiewicz of Wilno (Vilnius in present-day Lithuania) and Bogusław Mierzwa of Warsaw.

Polish emblem in Tentsmuir Forest
1940s

Polish soldiers were stationed in Tentsmuir Forest in the 1940s. On the wall of one of the buildings they occupied, they incised in concrete the crowned Polish White Eagle, together with symbols of Scotland: the lion and the thistle.

Commemoration of Poles in Clydebank
2005

Clydebank’s Solidarity Plaza (Plac Wolności) features a 10-metre monolith erected in 2005 to honour Poles who helped defend the town during Luftwaffe raids, commonly termed “Clydebank Blitz”. There is also a plaque commemorating the town’s heroic defence conducted from the destroyer ORP “Piorun”.

Memorial to the insurgents from Gdańsk, 1834, Portsmouth

In the seaside city of Portsmouth stands the “Polish Memorial: Soldiers of Gdańsk 1834”, commemorating 212 participants in the November Rising who, after three years of Prussian captivity, arrived in Portsmouth in 1834. The memorial stands in Kingston Cemetery. The initiative to mark the centenary of the first Polish emigration to Britain was taken by the Circle of the 4th Infantry Regiment of the Legions in London, which in 1964 established a Building Committee. The monument has three parts: a central, tallest section bearing the Virtuti Militari Cross and a tablet with a nominal roll of the soldiers who reached Britain on the ship “Marianne”; a left-hand section with a tablet and a relief of a standard-bearer of the 4th Line Infantry Regiment of the Kingdom of Poland carrying the colours, with a chaplain beneath a cross and soldiers marching in formation in the background: at the soldier’s feet are skulls and the Warsaw mermaid; and a right-hand section explaining whom the memorial commemorates, depicting soldiers landing from a boat, the ship “Marianne” visible offshore. All inscriptions are in Polish and English.

Plaque to Józef Stanisław Kosacki, St Andrews

A plaque in St Andrews, Scotland, commemorates Józef Stanisław Kosacki. Kosacki was a signals officer in the 1st Polish Corps, which was stationed in St Andrews. In 1937, commissioned by the Artillery Department of the Polish Ministry of National Defence, he constructed a device for detecting unexploded ordnance. He reached Scotland in 1940, having been evacuated from France. After the war he returned to Poland, where he worked on the development of electronic and nuclear devices. He died in 1990. The plaque was funded by the St Andrews Preservation Trust.

Commemoration of Polish airmen at Grangemouth Cemetery

The war cemetery at Grangemouth contains a plaque commemorating pilots who fell in the Second World War, including twelve Poles listed by surname and first initial. Graves of Polish nationals are also present.

No. 307 Squadron aircraft at RAF Museum Midlands, Cosford
c. 1940

The RAF Museum Midlands in Cosford holds a Boulton Paul Defiant Mk I from the Second World War. Defiant Mk I aircraft first saw combat on 12 May 1940; from September that year they served with the Polish No. 307 Squadron RAF. Notably, the type inspired little enthusiasm among pilots, as its only armament was mounted in a rear turret operated by the air gunner.

Polish Air Force Memorial, Northolt
1948
Mieczysław Lubelski

For the memorial and the story of its creation, see the article by Piotr Goltz.