TO commemorate the centenary of lost heir Courtenay Throckmorton’s death during the First World War, Coughton Court has unveiled an art exhibit.

Courtenay Throckmorton died in battle on April 9 1916, and this year also marks 70 years since the Court came into National Trust hands.

To mark the two events, a piece of art called ‘A Farewell to Arms’ has been commissioned from local artist, Jennifer Collier to grace the Court dining room table, and a farewell dinner party has been imagined for Courtenay and other soldiers from the estate.

Panels in the dining room tell the stories of these men, and the floral display from artist Jennifer Collier will serve as the centrepiece for the dining table.

The paper flowers are made from different documents relating to the soldiers, including medal cards and maps of the battles in which they saw active service.

The team at Coughton gathered research from local libraries and regimental museums, and some family members brought in photographs and letters they had kept from loved ones during the war.

Rebecca Farr, conservation and engagement manager, said: "The biggest revelation came when we discovered that four out of the five men played together on the Coughton Cricket Team.

"Suddenly the world we had furnished for our diners shrank significantly - they all knew each other, and what’s more, they played cricket together.

"We checked Courtenay Throckmorton’s diary and every Saturday he recorded the score of the Coughton Cricket Team.’

"The team had found, mostly through family history websites, photographs of four out of the five diners but unfortunately Lance Corporal Mason was a lot trickier to track down.

"We searched the internet, the Warwickshire Regimental Museum, local history groups and libraries, copies of local newspapers on microfiche, all to no avail. As a last resort we put an article in a local parish booklet in the hope that we may get some photographs of the cricket club.

"A couple of weeks later a gentleman phoned to say he had some old photographs of his family playing on the team. On further enquiry we discovered that his great uncle was Lance Corporal Mason and even better, he gave us a picture to use.

"The lives of these men started in very different ways, from rich to poor, but they were all linked together, part of life in Coughton, and we will remember them."

Coughton has been home to the Throckmorton family for 600 years. The art piece will be displayed in the dining room until October.

For more information visit nationaltrust.org.uk/coughtoncourt or call 01789 400777.