'Saffron Walden Weekly News' Friday 6th May 1921 reported: 'On Sunday afternoon a large crowd gathered in the burial ground of the Congregational Church, Clavering, to witness the unveiling of the war memorial, placed there by members of the Congregational body and a few friends. The work was carried out by Messrs J. Day and Son of Bishop's Stortford, and is an excellent piece of work... The Rev. Evans Morgan (Newport) performed the unveiling ceremony, and the Rev S. Morton (vicar of the parish) and the Rev. A Cook (Stansted) assisted'. (In referring to the location at which the memorial had been erected, Reverend E. Morgan mentioned that there had been some previous disagreement re how and where the village should commemorate their casualties: 'The proposal was made at the first meeting, which was held to consider what form a war memorial should take, and it was universally agreed that a monument should be erected in some public thoroughfare. Other schemes were brought forward, which were neither popular nor feasible, consequently nothing further was done in the matter. It devolved upon the members of the Congregational Church to erect that memorial in a prominent place in their graveyard, where it could be seen by all passers-by, and in doing this he felt convinced they would meet with the approval of the whole parish').

Herts and Essex Observer Saturday 7/5/1921 reported: 'Clavering Congregational Church War Memorial. Unveiling Ceremony. On Sunday afternoon a large assembly gathered in the Burial Ground of the Congregational Church, Clavering, to witness the unveiling of the War Memorial, placed there by members of the Congregational body and a few friends. The work was carried out by Messrs J. Day & Son, of Bishop's Stortford, and is an excellent example. The memorial consists of a plain massive monolith of grey granite, about 8 feet high by 3 feet wide, standing upon a base of the same material, projecting a few inches on all sides, which has for its foundation a slab of hard Yorkshire stone, built upon a ferro-concrete footing. The dedicatory inscription and names of the fallen are engraved in lead letters upon a white Sicilian marble panel, inlaid in the front of the monolith, and there is a blood-red Cross of Sacrifice, interwoven with a gilded crown of Victory, carved in low relief with the dates 1914-1919 on either side. The names inscribed are as follows...' https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003122/19210507/112/0008

The War Memorials Trust's record of this memorial can be found at https://www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk/memorial/138067/

The following details are of the Grant made by the War Memorials Trust in 2011 (see http://www.warmemorials.org/search-grants/?gID=922 ): 'In Clavering there is a war memorial located in the grounds of the Christian Centre on Stortford Road (originally the Congregational Church, then the United Reform Church and now run in partnership between the Church of England and The Methodist Church). The memorial is composed of blocks of limestone with a tooled finish in the shape of an obelisk and with an inlaid marble panel on the front which contains the World War I inscriptions; a small marble plaque on the rear of the memorial holds the World War II inscriptions. The memorial was built after World War I but later had World War II inscriptions added. In 2011 War Memorials Trust offered a grant of £150 towards conservation works to the memorial. The pointing had deteriorated so joints were raked out by hand and re-pointed with lime mortar. There were a number of loose stones and these were secured in place with slate wedges. The memorial was also cleaned with water and non-metallic brushes, taking extra care not to oversaturate the marble as this would make the existing staining worse. SmartWater was also applied to the lead lettering to protect it from theft'.

Historic England's record of the memorial can be found at https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1418866 Their reasons for designation as Grade II were: 'The war memorial, erected in 1921, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Historic interest: it has special historic interest commemorating those members of the community who died in the First and Second World Wars; * Design interest: due to the almost haphazard manner in which the roughly hewn stones have been laid, the memorial gives the impression of being a fragment of a village or churchyard cross'. Their 'History' of the memorial read: 'The war memorial was erected in 1921 to the memory of the fallen in the First World War, and the names of the fallen in the Second World War were subsequently added. The unveiling ceremony was performed by Rev. Evans Morgan of Newport who was assisted by Rev. F. Morton, vicar of the parish, and Rev. A. Cook of Stansted. It is not known who designed the memorial but it may have been Messrs J. Day & Son of Bishops Stortford who were responsible for its construction. The memorial was placed in the grounds of the former Congregational Chapel (now the Christian Centre) which was designed by Sulman & Rhodes in 1872. It is said that members of the Congregational Church and those of the parish Church of St Mary and St Clement could not agree on a site so they each provided their own. In 2011 a grant from War Memorials Trust enabled the conservation and repair of the memorial which involved fixing the stone slabs with slate wedges, repointing, and cleaning'.

"Lest We Forget: The First World War Memorials of Uttlesford District", published by Recorders of Uttlesford History, 2014; ISBN 978-1-873669-14-3, pages 28 and 29, record the memorial obelisk, and give biographical details of one of the men commemorated on it: Eric Osterfield Arliss Andrews, whose family had moved to the village shortly before WW1.

A photo of the Obelisk, outside what is now the Clavering Christian Centre (and was formerly the Congregational Church, then the United Reformed Church), can be found at https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4738346