CLAVERING RECORDER’S REPORT 2013

Clavering had a relatively quiet year both on the history front and more generally.

Our Oral History Project continued but only one more book was added to the Clavering Remembered series, launched with a very convivial party in the Fox pub in December.

A presentation was given at the history group agm on the Dig & Sow the previous year, with a display of finds, now analysed and published in a booklet.

During spring and summer the group booked the Cambs Rhee Search group to do geophysics in the grounds of the Bury and churchyard. The resulting diagrams have yet to be interpreted but a few possible outlines emerged.

There was a highly successful Day School, organised (separately from the history group) by the Recorder under the umbrella of the Clavering History Centre, which seeks to offer educational history facilities to the wider area as well as the village. The subject was Landscape History and some of the best tutors came along and gave a splendid day with an attendance of 75. The resulting profit was spent on binding the rather fragile copies of the wartime parish magazines.
As ever, the recording work goes on – family history, collecting, cataloguing, showing visitors round the village. New photos, newscuttings and documents continue to be added.

Members of the history group enjoyed a visit to the WW2 pillbox in Stortford Road, where Essex expert Fred Nash gave a descriptive talk of how it was built and used, and afterwards in the fields opposite found another concrete object from WW2.

At the other end of the time scale, I am still trying to persuade Clavering Parish Council to retain and refurbish the 1930s telephone box at Skeins Way.

I am now working on a booklet about the Clavering war memorial, to be launched 4 August 2014 in conjunction with the Royal British Legion.

Jacqueline Cooper
Clavering Local History Recorder