A CHEPSTOW club has mounted its own tribute to the town's heroes of two world wars ahead of two important anniversaries.

Members of Chepstow Conservative Club have mounted pictures of soldiers who served in the wars and have mounted the flags of Australia and New Zealand on the front of the building for the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings in April 1915.

Chepstow commemorates Anzac Day — Australian and New Zealand Army Corps — on April 25 in honour of William Willams, a local seaman who was awarded the Victoria Cross for the heroism which cost him his life as he struggled under intense fire to help troops ashore.

The tribute at the club in Moor Street was put together by its secretary, Brian Rendell, a former history teacher at Whitecross School in Lydney.

He said: "We've started to decorate the club and we've made a photographic feature of soldiers and sailors from Chepstow who lost their lives during the two world wars.

"We have also been in touch with the Australian and New Zealand embassies who have supplied wreaths which our members will lay at Chepstow's unique memorial, the submarine gun from UB91.

"The Australian embassy has also sent us some posters they have produced for Anzac Day."

The tributes include a picture of two of Mr Rendell's great uncles who served at Gallipoli after emigrating to Australia and four members of the family of bar manager Charlotte Stamp who joined up in Chepstow and fought during the First World War.

The club also has a 1940s-style group — The Marionettes — performing on Saturday evening (April 25) and profits will go to the Chepstow branch of the British Legion and a charity to be suggested by 1 Rifles at Beachley Barracks.

The club's brewery, Carling, is also supporting the event by offering a free drink.

To mark the centenary of the landings a parade will be leaving the Welsh Street car park at 10.45am on Saturday followed by the laying of wreaths at the gun in Beaufort and an act of remembrance led by Rev Christopher Blanchard, the vicar of Chepstow.

After the service there will be a dedication at St Mary's Church of a newly-restored painting depicting the action in which Able Seaman Williams lost his life.

The painting by Charles Dixon (1872-1934) shows the troops disembarking from the SS River Clyde on V Beach at Gallipoli.

There will also be a tour of the refurbished former home of the Chepstow branch of the British Legion which has been converted into a "backpackers' lodge".

May 8 will see the 100th anniversary of the heaviest loss of life suffered by the town in the First World War.

Seven men from the town — as well as others from Tidenham, Caldicot and the surrounding villages — were killed during the Battle of Frezenburg Ridge in Belgium.