FROM North Yorkshire’s smallest communities to its largest towns and city - generations of all ages came together to pay their respects on Remembrance Sunday.

Communities turned out in force to as the nation marked the hundredth anniversary since the outbreak of the First World War. Most estimated the crowds gathered at war memorials across the county were the largest in years.

The parade in Richmond was one of the many that attracted huge community support.

The service of remembrance began in St Mary’s Church and the parade then made its way to the Friary Gardens, where wreaths were laid around the war memorial.

The town is home to one of the region’s leading military museums, the Green Howards Museum, which reopened its doors to coincide with Remembrance Sunday. The museum has been closed for more than a year after undergoing a £1.7 million restoration.

During the First World War, when the regiment was known as the Yorkshire Regiment, 65,000 men enlisted, 12 Victoria Crosses were awarded, 7,500 were killed and 24,000 wounded.

Following the war, soldiers and their families donated hundreds of precious objects to the regiment which were put on display when the museum was created in 1922.

In Stokesley the town’s Remembrance Service was followed by a parade to the war memorial at West Green, where this year a remembrance garden was created for the public to leave their own tributes. Remembrance Sunday parades also took place at Great Ayton, Hutton Rudby and Osmotherley, where wreaths were laid at the village war memorials.

In Northallerton, military personnel, veterans, local organisations and faith leaders laid wreaths at the town’s war memorial. In Thirsk, a Remembrance Service began at St Oswald’s Church in Sowerby, followed by a parade through Thirsk at 11.15am and a salute in the Market Place. Wreaths were then laid at St Mary’s Church in Thirsk.