Memorial And Attached Walls, Steps And Pool Surround At American Military Cemetery

TL 45 NW MADINGLEY ST NEOTS ROAD

412/4/10006 Memorial and attached walls, steps & pool surround at 25.09.1998 American Military Cemetery

II*

Memorial chapel and museum room, with attached walls, steps and pool surrounds. 1952-54 by Perry, Shaw, Hepburn, Kehoe and Dean of Boston, with Hughes and Bicknell of Cambridge as executant architects. Portland stone with sandstone flag steps and pool surrounds. Low pitched roof to chapel, its covering not visible (probably copper). Tall, rectangular chapel, places to one end of a row of three long rectangular pools. To the right of the chapel entrance a wall is attached which turns at right angles to flank a terrace adjacent to the pools. Upon this wall the names of the fallen are inscribed and four service men, in modern dress, stand sentinel, carved in stone. The wall turns again and drops to admit a view of the pools and chapel and there is an approach down a flight of steps, which is flanked to its other side by a matching Portland stone pier. Again the level drops, and the Portland stone wall becomes a low retaining wall enclosing the garden area to the left side of the pools, again to admit a flight of steps near the chapel and to finally become a plinth for the chapel. Chapel is simple in its lines with a tall rectangular doorway and a gable above with a commemorative inscription. Wall to left with projecting Portland stone piers rising the full height of the wall. Eastern apse. Decorative bronze window frames. Interior with mosaic to ceiling and apse, in blues, browns and golds, depicting angels and aeroplanes. Relief map on the liturgical south wall depicting The Mastery of The Atlantic: The Great Air Assault. The Memorial and Cemetery was built by the American Battle Monuments Commission, on land donated in perpetuity by Cambridge University. The Memorial is a remarkable building of extremely high quality which is historically important as a war memorial.

Listing NGR: TL4051159550

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, 27 July 2017.