Private James Aldridge

There's a modest memorial to Private James Aldridge just outside Chipping Norton, tucked away in a corner of Oxfordshire that most visitors whizz straight past. He was a local lad who didn't come home from the First World War, one of thousands whose names live on in stone and remembrance rather than in living memory.

This isn't a grand visitor attraction with facilities or opening hours to plan around. It's a quiet spot for reflection - the sort of place you find yourself drawn to if you're interested in how the war touched small English towns. Chipping Norton itself is a proper old wool town with good pubs and the Theatre Royal if you're after an evening out, so you can easily combine a pilgrimage here with exploring the high street.

If you're based at one of the nearby caravan parks - Chipping Norton Camping and Caravanning Club Site is barely a mile away, or there's Cotswold Hills Country Park just as close - then a walk out to pay respects takes an hour at most. The surrounding countryside is lovely for rambling, and you'll get the lie of the land that Aldridge would have known before 1914.

History types and anyone with family connections to the war will find it moving in a understated British way. Casual tourists probably won't make a special trip, but if you're in the area it deserves ten minutes of your time. That's the point of these memorials, really - they ask us to remember someone local mattered.