TWO war heroes have been honoured by a town more a century after they showed great courage on the battle fields of World War One.

Bentham has laid two memorial paving stones, one in memory of Bentham-born Charles Robertson who won the Victoria Cross and Military Medal - and survived the war.

And the other to honour a former headteacher teacher at Bentham Grammar School, army chaplain Rev Theodore Bayley Hardy, the most highly decorated, non-combatant in the First World War who was killed on the Western front in 1918.

He won the Distinguished Service Medal, the Military Cross and the Victoria Cross for his work as a padre at the front, visiting the men under fire, going over the top with them and being at their sides in the conflict.

Bentham council town clerk, Jo Burton said the council was prompted to honour the men after leaning that the Government would finance stones in memory of First World War soldiers born in a community.

"Charles Robertson was born in Bentham later moving to Dorking. The Rev Hardy was not originally from Bentham but he had strong contacts with the town having taught at the school so we thought appropriate to honour him and financing it through the community," she said.

The stones were dedicated at a service attended by representatives of the Royal Fusiliers and the Army Chaplaincy Corps, who laid wreaths and members of the Skipton Branch of the British Legion.

The service, arranged by Bentham Town Council and Bentham Churches Together, was led by Rev Anne Russell and accompanied by music from the Kirkby Lonsdale Brass Band.

Charles Robertson was 35 when the war broke out, having already fought in the Boer War, and arrived at the Western front in November 1915 with the Royal Fusiliers.

He was wounded in April 1917 at the Battle of Arras but returned to his battalion in time to take part in a raid on the night of August 31/ September 1, 1917, for which he was awarded the Military Medal.

In early 1918 Lance Corporal Robertson repelled a strong German attack on his position. Realising he was about to be cut off, he sent two men for reinforcements whilst he and another held the position, firing his Lewis gun at the advancing Germans.

No reinforcements arrived but Robertson continued to hold the position, firing alone when his companion was killed. Twice he had to move further back but he continued to fight, though wounded and under heavy machine gun fire, until his ammunition was exhausted.

On told he would receive the VC he is reported to have remarked: "My word, I shall be suffering from a swelled head." He died in 1954 aged 74.

The Rev Theodore Bayley Hardy VC DSO MC was a chaplain with the Lincolnshire Regiment. Under heavy shell and mortar fire, he managed to rescue several wounded men. He displayed great gallantry with disregard to his own personal safety..

Between July 1917 at the Battle of Passchendaele and April 1918 at the fourth Battle of Ypres he was awarded the DSO, the Military Cross and the Victoria Cross

The short sighted chaplain would shout out "its only me" when he approached along a trench. They would then know it was their "dear old padre" arriving through withering bullets and shells.

From late 1915 until October 1918 when he was killed, he hardly left the front staying in the trenches with the men, getting to to know them, chatting or praying, encouraging them, writing letters for them and going over the top without a weapon, staying with the men when wounded and rescuing them when trapped.