Wells branch of the Royal British Legion are trying to get the St Cuthbert's Church war memorial restored to its former glory as part of its 90th anniversary celebrations in an attempt to safeguard the historically significant monument.

"There are several problems with the memorial", says Robin White of the Wells branch. "As it's coming up to the joint 90th anniversary of the British Legion, and of the Wells branch specifically as the longest serving branch of the Legion.

"We're very much in the planning stages, the first steps of the project. Currently, there is no estimated cost or time frame in place for the completion of the project. It's a job with puzzle pieces missing, we have to find out what they are."

The Wells Journal has provided the British Legion with information from its archives of an article published in the Journal in October 1922, which details the initial unveiling, the materials – Doulting stone, concrete, bronze – and the plans used in the construction.

Due to the amount of usage the churchyard gets on a daily basis, the immediate area around the memorial and the memorial itself are often used as a seating and picnic area.

The top of the memorial is missing and Mr White suggested that young people trying to scale the memorial in the past years caused the damage. He said: "It was them hanging off the cross after they'd scaled it that might have caused it to snap off."

The text that was originally written on the central pillar has now significantly worn away due to the weathering of the soft sandstone.

The 1922 article states that On the face of the pillar is inscribed: "This Pillar of Remembrance is set up to the honour of the men of Wells who gave their lives in the Great War 1914-1919," and on the upper steps of the base is inscribed the well-known quotation from Ecclesiasticus: "Their name liveth for evermore."

In 1999, it was agreed upon that the name of a Royal Marine, who suffered severe wounds in the Second World War, was to be added to the memorial as he had died, albeit years later, of the wounds he had received in the war.

The city council employed a firm to add the Royal Marine's name to the memorial.

On the day of the work, they turned up at St Cuthbert's and, without asking the Verger, began to look around the memorial for a space on one of the plaques. Finding a space on the World War One plaque, they cut a section off and added his name to the list before sticking it back on with an adhesive. Mr White describes it as "a bodge job", he then went on to state that "The memorial was constructed primarily as a tribute to those who fell in the Great War, and wasn't designed to have anything added to it."

Due to the restoration being on church property, not only do the town planners have to be consulted about planning permission, but the church also needs to be consulted during the process called a faculty, which is similar to a planning application.

So far, the church hasn't been willing to grant a faculty to the legion.

The Wells British Legion are appealing for any information or photographs relating to the war memorial that might give a better idea of how it might have looked in its entirety.