A WREATH has been laid at Brecon’s Cenotaph to remember the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.

The assault, which would last until November 1916, began on July 1 and on the first day alone 19,000 British soldiers lost their lives.

In total more than a million men were killed and wounded on all sides in the World War I battle.

The Brecon branch of the Royal British Legion organised the remembrance service at 11am at the war memorial at St Mary’s Church.

As the church bells chimed for 11 o’clock Major Terry J Gammons, the chairman of the Brecon branch, read the Ode of Remembrance from Laurence Binyon’s poem For the Fallen.

Members of the public stopped to pay tribute and the chatter of the High Street hushed as veterans and civic dignitaries observed the two-minute silence.

Andy Lovell, the president of the Brecon Royal British Legion branch, placed the wreath at the foot of the memorial first erected to honour those who lost their lives in World War I.

Brecon Town Council had laid a wreath at 7.30am when Mayor Rose Evans blew three short blast on a whistle.

Whistles were blown along the Western Front at 7.30am on July 1, 1916 to signal the start of the assault.