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Ashdon

The memorial in the village of Ashdon, on the Essex-Cambridgeshire border, is a large Monks Park Portland stone block set on a wide base of three shallow concrete steps. The memorial carries two bronze plaques, one on the front and one on the side, as well as an engraved quotation on the rear face. It stands within a garden, surrounded on three sides by a beech hedge and on the fourth side, along the road, by a low post and chain fence with a wooden gate. The garden also contains lawn, a gravelled path, trees and shrubs. The memorial stands opposite the school.

In 2008/9 War Memorials Trust and the Wolfson Foundation offered £1,440 towards work to clean the memorial, to replace the flaking moulded top section of the memorial with stone to match the original, to carry out a small repair to the front top edge of the memorial which was also flaking, to clean and treat the bronze plaques with microcrystalline wax, to wash the steps and re-point open joints and treat them with biocide.

The dedication on the bronze plaque on the front of the memorial reads

"To the men of Ashdon who
gave their lives in the
Great War"

The names are then listed below.

The engraved quotation on the rear of the memorial, which comes from John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, reads

"And all the trumpets sounded
For them on the other side"

The plaque on the side of the memorial to commemorate the fallen of World War II reads

"To those who died
in the
Second World War
1939 – 1945
Pilot Officer E.W. Baldwin R.A.F.
Sgt. L.J. Furze R.A.F.
Pte. R. Peploe 2/ Som LI"

A white Portland stone plaque has been added underneath to commemorate Elizabeth Everitt, a local farmer’s wife who died trying to rescue American airmen from a burning aircraft which crashed near the village.

The intention of those who planned the memorial was that it should look like the designs of Sir Edwin Lutyens which were being erected in cemeteries in France; blocks in the shape of an altar raised on steps. The memorial was dedicated on 23rd October 1921 by Maj Gen Sir S W Hare KCMG CB, Commander of the East Anglian Territorial Division. The ceremony started with a parade of ex-Service men who marched into position headed by a band. The ex-Servicemen were inspected by the major general before the names of the fallen were read out, the memorial was unveiled and the Last Post was sounded.

Further information

War Memorials Trust reference WM2344
UK National Inventory of War Memorials: 22974

If you have a concern about this memorial please contact the Trust on conservation@warmemorials.org

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