TWO parts of a war memorial that have been separated for more than 30 years have been reunited at Cliffe Castle Museum.

The reunion has come following a chance discovery behind a wheeled bin and painstaking research by Keighley war historians.

Visitors to the Keighley museum can now see stained glass windows and an ornate wooden plaque that both honour Temple Street Methodist Church members who died in the First World War.

One item – a set of Morris & Co stained glass windows – was given to the museum in 1982 by the Bangladeshi Islamic Association when it took over the town centre chapel.

The windows became the centrepiece of a distinctive gallery upstairs at Cliffe Castle, but there was no trace of a wooden panel that originally came with it, listing the men who died.

Earlier this year the panel was discovered by a passer-by in a Keighley backstreet, possibly dumped when the house of a former church member was being cleared.

The panel was passed to the Men of Worth Project, whose volunteer members are dedicated to researching the stories of Keighley people killed in past wars.

Project members cleaned up the panel and offered it to Bradford Council's Museums and Galleries Service, who agreed to put it on show at Cliffe Castle Museum.

Men of Worth spokesman, Andy Wade, said museum staff wanted to put the original wooden panel next to the stained-glass windows, but it would not fit.

He said: “They have made a photographic facsimile of the original memorial board and reduced its size by 15 per cent so it will fit in the space above the door.

“The memorial board is on permanent display in the museum’s conservatory with an interpretation panel, which contains a photograph of the stained glass windows.

“They've done an excellent job and it's marvellous to see the memorial board where it belongs, on public display.”

Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, Bradford Council's executive member for education, skills and culture, said she is pleased visitors will now know exactly who the windows commemorate.

She added: “One of the men mentioned – Arthur Hastings – was the first person from Keighley to die in the First World War in September 1914, and it's right that more than 100 years later we can now commemorate him and his comrades, as was originally intended."

Men of Worth Project members are now researching all 23 men named on the plaque.