A MEMORIAL headstone commemorating Conservative soldiers who fell in the First World War will be restored to its rightful place after lying neglected in a barn for more than 30 years.

The memorial lists 18 Kidderminster Conservative Club members who were killed in the conflict.

It was removed from the wall of the former Conservative Party HQ in Kidderminster by treasurer Brian Jeffries before its demolition in the 60s and put into storage.

The headstone was presumed lost but a local historian spotted the tablet in a house in Blakedown which had been put on the market.

Now Chaddesley Corbett County Councillor Stephen Clee is to reinstate the tablet at the new HQ in Mill Street.

And he wants relatives of the fallen to come to a ceremony to mark the headstone's restoration.

He said: "As a keen historian I am delighted at this remarkable find.

"It is great that it will soon be back where it belongs - on our wall."

The men on the stone are Worcestershire Regiment: Joshua Clark, John Cooke, W Cook, F Davis, W Hanson, C Ingles, J Jones, S Moule, F Smythe, W Taylor, T Wilkes.

W Heeley, Coldstream Guards, L Jevons, Northamptonshire Regiment, H Jenning, Royal Field Artillery, A Neale, Royal Field Artillery, A Winbury, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, F Reynolds, Gloucestershire Regiment, L Longmore, Worcestershire Hussars.