For almost a century, they were the forgotten casualties of man’s conflict, but now Romsey is set to erect a statue to honour the horses that served during the First World War.

It’s planned to put up the War Horse monument in the town’s War Memorial Park, beneath which lies rubble taken from the Romsey Remount Depot, where tens of thousands of horses and mules were kept prior to their departure for the front.

Historian, Phoebe Merrick, one of the moving spirits behind the project, said: “I don’t know of a similar statue elsewhere. It’s particularly apt because of Romsey’s associations with the remount depot.”

The scheme was born out of the success of an arts project at King John’s House museum during 2011, when hundreds of people came to create terracotta warhorse statues.

Interest in the public art project was fuelled by the success of stage and screen adaptations of Michael Morpurgo’s novel, War Horse.

The cost of the life-size statue of horse and soldier, to be cast in bronze resin by Quarley artist, Amy Goodman, will be £55,000.

Amy has experience with sculpting horses, having created the Flying Horse sculpture which leaps out of a shopping arcade of the same name in Nottingham.

She said: “As long as I can remember, I have drawn and sculpted animals, particularly horses.

“Being involved with the war horse project is such an honour and I wish to convey the powerful bond between horse and soldier.”

Her design has been inspired by the “Pals” emblem of the remount camp and Alfred Munnings’s painting of “Jack Seeley and Warrior”. She has also drawn inspiration from the work of Lionel Edwards, one of the foremost painters of horses of the 20th century, who was stationed at Romsey.

It’s planned to place the statue on a paved area on the left as you enter the park before you reach the war memorial itself. There are also plans to redesign the entrance to the park and these will go out to public consultation in the summer.

A small committee has been set up to steer the project. Major General Patrick Cordingly, from West Dean, who commanded British troops in the first Gulf War, has agreed to be its patron.

Although the Army of 1914-18 was equipped with motorised transport, horses were still the most effective way to move artillery and equipment through the cloying mud of Flanders and Northern France.

One of the places these horses were trained for their duties was Romsey Remount Depot, to the west of the town on Pauncefoot Hill.

The camp had a staff of more than 2,000 men and nearly 120,000 horses and mules passed through the depot before it closed in 1919.

During the First World War, the Remount Service bought 468,000 horses in the UK – 17 per cent of the country’s equine working population. In addition to this, 688,619 animals were acquired from North America, more than 13,000 of which were lost at sea before they reached these shores.

Many of the horses came from America and were unbroken. They were landed at Devonport and transported by train to Romsey, where they were met by men from the depot and led through the town centre to the hilltop camp.

Phoebe Merrick said: “It’s important that people remember that it wasn’t only humans that suffered in the war.

“Many of these horses spent several weeks at sea then they came by train to Romsey then they were shipped off to the Western Front.

“Sadly, many of the surviving horses were shot after the war to save the expense of bringing them back to the UK. A few ended up on farms in Belgium and Germany.”

The project committee will be seeking grants but they also need the help of the public.

Borough councillor, Dorothy Baverstock, a member of the steering committee, kick-started the fund-raising by donating £1,000 from her Community Chest last month shortly before the end of her year as Test Valley mayor.

An anonymous donor has added £1,000 and Peugeot dealers, Snows of Romsey, have donated £2,000.

Anyone who’d like to make a donation can send a cheque made payable to Horse Fund, c/o the Town Clerk, the Town Hall, Market Place, Romsey, S051 8YZ.