Beyond Montville's galleries, eateries and curio shops, there's a village green with a story to tell of what happens to a community when its country goes to war. The Montville Memorial precinct is flanked by the 1921 memorial gates and a sentry of six trees. It includes two memorial halls, accessed by a short street called Memorial Close. Montville had developed barely 20 years before the war. It was a small rural community with 55 farmers and dairymen and their families: about 40 men went off to war. War memorials with their marble rolls of honour provide a local perspective of community patriotism that military records can't, and Montville's adds another dimension. It includes the names of all of those who volunteered. School children planted the trees as an Arbour Day project in 1923. Rolls of honour for both world wars are on the wall in Montville Hall, the larger of the buildings. The smaller building, now called Montville Memorial Hall, St Mary's Hall and Community Centre, was built in 1941 as a club room for returned WWI veterans. Montville's Memorial Park is the setting for annual ANZAC Day ceremonies and its halls are used year-round.
