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While most villages have a stone monument or a plaque in the church to commemorate the men who didn鈥檛 return from the Great War, one Suffolk village has something slightly different.

The Drinkstone War Memorial Institute was opened in the 1920s when the villagers decided they needed a community space and commemoration of the war dead.

Land was purchased 1921 but due to lack of funds constructing a hall wasn鈥檛 an option. Instead a wooden mess hut that was found at Great Ashfield aerodrome was brought the six miles to Drinkstone by horse and cart.

It served the village for 70 years before an electrical fire accelerated the need for a new village hall. The old hall was dismantled in June 2011 and was handed over to Stow Maries Museum in Essex.

The new Drinkstone War Memorial Village Hall was opened in July 2013. On display is restored memorial embroidery to a local man, Arthur Pryke. Pryke died on 1 November 1918, just days before the Armistice in France and is buried at 脡taples. The embroidery was found on an internet auction site in June 2009. The seller had picked it up from a car boot sale in 1998.

Location: Drinkstone, West Suffolk

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