Kessingland War Memorial

The Kessingland War Memorial is a granite structure located in the churchyard, approximately 70 meters south of the Grade I-listed Church of St Edmund. It stands about 4.5 meters tall on a slight mound, which is bordered with stones and metal hoops, and is accessed by a path from the south wall of the church.

The memorial features a botonné cross on top of a substantial colonnaded base. The cross has flowers carved in low relief on the front faces of its arms and displays the IHS monogram at the center, with a heavily moulded foot that transitions to the supporting pylon through short corner scrolls, connected by carved relief swags, and a shallow two-stepped base.

The pylon consists of two stages. The upper stage is a large block with a capped cornice, decorated with egg-and-dart motifs and beribboned swags on the front and rear frieze. The lower stage, which is about twice as deep as the upper, resembles a sarcophagus and is flanked by consoles on either side, featuring a deep moulded foot. This stage displays the memorial's inscriptions.

On the east and west sides of the pylon, there are colonnades made up of three Ionic columns that support semi-circular stonework with a moulded architrave, including a course of dentils. The central pylon and its colonnades rest on a chamfered plinth and a single-stepped base, which is rectangular in shape.

The front face of the lower stage of the pylon lists the names of those commemorated from the First World War in applied metal lettering, with the dates 1914 and 1918 noted below on the chamfered plinth. The names from the Second World War are similarly inscribed on the rear face, along with the dates 1939 and 1945 on the plinth. The front face of the base features the inscription "GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS, THAT A MAN LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS."