The Hidden Commemoration in the Waveney Valley

The project was funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and researched by members of the Waveney Valley Community Archaeology Group. The aim of the project was to survey and record ‘hidden’ memorials in the Waveney area, bringing them to wider attention, and preserving this mostly hidden history of local commemoration. The project also sought to share gathered information with a variety of groups. Contents forming a digital archive have been made freely available via our website, acting as a permanent record accessible to academics, professionals and those with a legal responsibility for the care of these monuments, thereby safeguarding them for the future. The 'Hidden Commemoration' website includes background information to the project, the stories we collected, and a map showing (where possible) the location of the events told in the stories. It additionally houses a short video based on the stories along with a page of resources that helped volunteers research individuals. The project wanted to investigate beyond the more familiar programme of memorial building that took place after the conflict - stone monuments, graveyard memorials and obelisks inscribed with the names of the fallen erected in local parishes - to commemorate community losses. Whilst these memorials still remain the main focal point for annual commemoration, there were also many hundreds of more discrete and personal memorials produced in the post-war years. These memorials could take many forms; from the re-dedication of a local amenity such as a village hall, to the keeping of a Roll of Honour or ‘Flanders Cross’ within the parish church. Many of these less formal memorials now lie overlooked and unrecorded, with their significance largely forgotten to the broader population. With their removal and loss remaining a very real threat, this project sought to react and highlight this issue of 'Hidden Commemoration' within our local area. The photograph shows Staffordshire Yeomanry billeted at Oakley on the River Waveney in 1914 or 1915.