Fordham War Memorial

Carter Street, Fordham

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1331743
Date first listed:: 31-Jan-1984
List Entry Name:: Fordham War Memorial
Statutory Address:: Carter Street, Fordham

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Date:: 1999-09-25
Reference:: IOE01/01347/30
Rights:: © Mr Bruce Knight. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1331743
Date first listed:: 31-Jan-1984
List Entry Name:: Fordham War Memorial
Statutory Address 1:: Carter Street, Fordham

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: Carter Street, Fordham

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Cambridgeshire
District:: East Cambridgeshire (District Authority)
Parish:: Fordham
National Grid Reference:: TL6306170841

Summary

First World War memorial, 1921, by Sir Edwin Lutyens with later additions for the Second World War.

Reasons for Designation

Fordham War Memorial is listed at Grade II for the following principle reasons: * Historic interest: as an eloquent witness to the tragic impacts of world events on this community, and the sacrifices it made in the First World War; * Architect: by the nationally renowned architect Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens (1869-1944), who designed extant 58 memorials at home and abroad including the Cenotaph in Whitehall; * Design: a rare Doric column memorial by Lutyens; * Group value: with the Grade II-listed 1 Carter Street.

History

At Fordham, a war memorial committee was formed in June 1919 and originally proposed to erect a portico with mural tablets at the entrance to the local cemetery. However, Mrs Dunn-Gardner of Fordham Abbey donated five acres of land in the middle of the village for the combined purpose of a recreation ground and a setting for the war memorial. Lutyens was commissioned and designed a column surmounted by a bronze statue of St George by Sir George Frampton RA. It is similar to the Lutyens/Frampton war memorial in Hove.

The memorial was built by Frank Johnson, a local builder and stone mason and was unveiled by Mrs Dunn-Gardner on 7 August 1921. In June 1991 the memorial was demolished by vandals and the statue stolen. £4,750 was raised for a replacement statue of St George, moulded in fibreglass by Robert Donaldson, an artist from Yaxley, near Peterborough.

Sir Edwin Lutyens OM RA (1869-1944) was the leading English architect of his generation. Before the First World War his reputation rested on his country houses and his work at New Delhi, but during and after the war he became the pre-eminent architect for war memorials in England, France and the British Empire. While the Cenotaph in Whitehall (London) had the most influence on other war memorials, the Thiepval Arch was the most influential on other forms of architecture. He designed the Stone of Remembrance which was placed in all Imperial War Graves Commission cemeteries and in some cemeteries in England, including some with which he was not otherwise associated.

Details

The memorial comprises a Doric column of Portland stone, originally surmounted by a bronze statue of St George by Sir George Frampton RA and since the 1990s by a fibreglass replacement by Robert Donaldson. The column rises from a two-stage square plinth, itself set on a two-stage square base. Overall, the memorial is 6m tall. Inscriptions on the upper stage of the plinth read:

(South): OUR/ GLORIOUS/ DEAD (West): MCMXIV (East): MCMXIX

The names of the fallen of both wars are inscribed on all four sides of the lower plinth.

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 26/10/2015

This List entry has been amended to add sources for War Memorials Online and the War Memorials Register. These sources were not used in the compilation of this List entry but are added here as a guide for further reading, 13 January 2017.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 49021
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Skelton, T, Gliddon, G, Lutyens and the Great War, (2008), 78, 81, 83, 148, 159, 168
Websites
War Memorials Online, accessed 13 January 2017 from https://www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk/memorial/121223
War Memorials Register, accessed 13 January 2017 from http://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/1290

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.