A RARE and striking glass war memorial, featuring the doomed Cunard liner, Lusitania, has been restored after a 10-year campaign.

The unique tribute to the dead of two world wars at St James’s Church, Mill Lane, West Derby, shows Cunard Line’s record-breaker steaming at full speed with smoke billowing from her four funnels.

She was heading for Liverpool from New York when she was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat off the Irish coast on May 7, 1915, with the loss of some 1,200 lives.

An image of the Lusitania was probably incorporated in the First World War memorial because she was a popular Liverpool ship and many crew members from the city died in the sinking.

The six foot by four foot wall-mounted memorial inside the church is made up of nearly 3,000 pieces of colourful glass embedded into mortar, looking like a window.

It is constructed using the opus sectile (Latin for “cut work”) art technique originally popularised in ancient Rome.

The monument is one of only three church war memorials in England made this way.

It was later given a sandstone surround which commemorates the dead of the Second World War.

Rowena Cain, a member of St James’s congregation, organised the campaign to raise £20,000 for the work.

“This beautiful memorial has been preserved for future generations thanks to the generosity of charities and individuals,” she said.

The memorial was affected by damp and was removed from the wall by a team from Liverpool’s National Conservation Centre while fund-raising continued.

Specialist glass and ceramics conservator Lynne Edge spent a total of five months dismantling and reassembling the memorial, setting on a new backing board.