Crockenhill War Memorial

100 years ago this month, on 4 March 1922, Crockenhill War Memorial was unveiled at its current site at the junction of Stones Cross Road and Green Court Road. There does not appear to have been any grand unveiling at the time it was erected – in fact, the first evidence we can find of any actual service of Remembrance was not until 1926. The extract below is from Elsie Clements’ diary – ‘Sunday 14 November 1926. The first ever service of Remembrance at Crockenhill’s war memorial. Went up to the Memorial for a service at 3.00. First time there had been a service of any description there, and it was never unveiled – only as the wind blew a sack off.’

We would certainly like to mark the occasion with more than a sack-unveiling! Our Remembrance Service in November this year will include a re-dedication service. We are planning on having the Memorial cleaned and some re-pointing work carried out, as well as purchasing our own Remembrance service flag. We are also ordering two permanent benches to the side of the Memorial so that our less mobile residents are able to attend our annual Remembrance services more comfortably. The Parish Council has decided to use the extra income it has received from AFC Green Court Football Club for use of the Cricket Meadow for their training and matches, to purchase one of these benches. It is considered fitting that the money be spent on this area and the Club, being a local community team, is pleased to see how their team is directly contributing the area.

History of Crockenhill War Memorial (from ‘The commemoration of Wars in Crockenhill, Eynsford & Lullingstone, Kent’ by WG Duncombe, H H Harnett, R A McAllister and Dr Susan Pittman)

The war memorial on the Cricket Meadow, Stones Cross Rd, was erected in the early 1920s to commemorate the purchase of the field as a memorial to the dead. Money was raised from communal jam making in the village and from money remaining in a fund set-up to finance Belgian refugee families who were adopted by the village. It cost £82 and was unveiled on 4 March 1922. The Cricket Meadow was run by 6 trustees until the remaining 2 in 1948 handed ownership to the Parish Council (then Eynsford). The site of the war memorial at the junction of Stones Cross Road and Green Court Road was then on the main road to Swanley, but in the early 1960s when the Swanley by-pass was built a new road linked the village to Swanley, and the site of the war memorial is no longer on a through-road. There are no names on the memorial, the inscription reading:-

This Recreation Ground was acquired by Subscription among the inhabitants of Crockenhill and by them dedicated a memorial of gratitude and honour to the men of the village who fell in the Great War 1914-1918.

He is not dead this friend not dead

But in the path we mortals tread

Got some few trifling steps ahead

And nearer to the end

So that you too once past the bend

Shall meet again

As face to face this friend

You fancy dead.

Dr Pittman recently sent her reports on Crockenhill’s War Memorials to the Imperial War Museum for inclusion in the national inventory. They replied with the following interesting observation:

‘The inscription on the cricket meadow memorial is most unusual. Many inscriptions were used over and over again but this is, so far as I know, unique.’ This is actually part of a longer poem called Consolation by Robert Louis Stevenson. Who chose this particular verse from this poem remains a mystery!

Cricket Meadow re-naming

The Cricket Meadow, as it is known locally, is officially registered as Crockenhill Recreation Ground. The football club refer to it as the Memorial Recreation ground which is actually a more fitting name, given the site’s history. Given the significance of this year in the site’s history, the Parish Council would like to consider officially re-naming it as ‘Crockenhill Memorial Meadow/Ground’ or similar, and we would welcome residents’ views on this before a final decision is made.