Our stories

Our Stories

Private Pook

Private Pook

Beatrice Watling was born at the City Maternity Home, North Heigham in Norwich in 1882. She grew up in Fritton in South Norfolk, one of five daughters and two sons of Thomas and Emma Watling. In 1901 she was working as a nurse domestic in Norwich. Ten years later she...

read more
Lieutenant Flowerdew VC at Moreuil Wood – The Fog of War

Lieutenant Flowerdew VC at Moreuil Wood – The Fog of War

Gordon Muriel Flowerdew was born near Scole in South Norfolk on January 2nd 1885, the son of Arthur and Hannah Flowerdew of Billingford Hall. One of ten sons and four daughters, he, like all his brothers, was sent to Framlingahm College which he attended from 1894 to...

read more
Herbert Garnham and the Burston School Strike

Herbert Garnham and the Burston School Strike

Herbert Garnham was born in Burston early in 1891, one of twelve children of Henry and Sarah Garnham. There are a lot of gaps in Herbert's story. With luck we'll be able to fill some of them in in time. The 1911 census found Herbert, then aged 20, living at home with...

read more
A Thankful Village

A Thankful Village

St Michael South Elmham church stands on the edge of a large green about one mile north of Rumburgh in Suffolk. Inside the church on a wall behind the font there is a simple plaque. This simple plaque marks out the village as having a very rare distinction, one shared...

read more
Private Henry Allen

Private Henry Allen

Henry Allen, born in Berkshire, served in the Shropshire Yeomanry, buried in a Commonwealth War Graves Commission grave in a rural Suffolk churchyard. Henry or Harry Allen was a private in the Shropshire Yeomanry based in Flixton Park, one of many Territorial units...

read more
The Waveney VCs

The Waveney VCs

At least four Victoria Crosses were won by men from the Waveney Valley during the Great War, and two of them came from neighbouring villages. All four awards were posthumous and one of the men won his in an attack described as "the last great cavalry charge". Sergeant...

read more
Bungay’s Peace Year Street Signs

Bungay’s Peace Year Street Signs

If you've been to Bungay it's possible you may have noticed these. It's equally possible you may have not. It was decided that Bungay would commemorate the end of the Great War in 1919 by installing specially commissioned street signs around the centre of the town....

read more
The Dickleburgh Shell

The Dickleburgh Shell

It is a bit battered and careworn is the Dickleburgh shell. And it's not in Dickleburgh. It's actually in the 100th Bomb Group Museum at Thorpe Abbotts, tucked away in a corner of the control tower. You really should go and visit the museum if you haven't already done...

read more
Second Lieutenant Joseph Phillips RFC

Second Lieutenant Joseph Phillips RFC

2nd Lt Joseph Leo Phillips was a Canadian trainee pilot with the Royal Flying Corps. The son of Joseph and Ellen Christie Phillips of Ottawa, he joined the Royal Flying Corps in the spring of 1917. During 1917 the demand for trained pilots became critical following...

read more
Welcome

Welcome

Welcome to the website For Hidden Commemoration. This project is being run by Waveney Valley Community Archaeology Group. Our intention is to collect and record as much information as possible on the less known memorials to the Great War in the Waveney Valley In the...

read more