THE controversial story behind one of York's first war memorials is to be investigated by a group of historians.

York Archaeological Trust announced earlier this month they would be working with residents in their communities to unearth forgotten tales about poignant tributes to soldiers, sailors and airmen, which sprung up in the years following the end of the First World War.

Following a meeting to discuss their plans, the group of archaeologists and historians decided to first look at the city's tribute to fallen soldiers in War Memorial Gardens, Leeman Road.

Dr Jon Kenny, YAT's community archaeologist, said: "We had quite a lot of people at the meeting and there's a number of different things people would like to work on to follow up stories.

"We want to get behind the stories of memorials, especially the one in the War Memorial Gardens.

"We want to look up stories and that particular war memorial took a while to put up.

"A lot of them were going up in 1919 but that didn't go up until 1924, which was a lot later.

"People started to get frustrated there wasn't a main memorial for the community.

"There's a whole story about how long it took and how they finally got it up."

Part of the project will be making a film to record the journey of exploration as well as gather interviews exploring the relationship residents have with memorials.

A similar nationwide scheme investigating plaques, statues and memorials was completed by the Imperial War Museum, and anything compiled by the groups will be added to their findings.

Dr Kenny added: "We are going to give people some training on how they can record them at a workshop on November 11 at St Clement's Parish Hall.

"Part of that will be go up to the War Memorial Gardens' service to watch what is happening."