Ealing War Memorial

MATERIALS: Portland stone ashlar; brick walls faced in ashlar; wrought-iron gates.

DESCRIPTION: a symmetrical composition comprising gate piers, quadrant walls and end piers supported on a moulded plinth, each pier bearing a stone urn from Elm Grove, the Ealing home of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. The flanking walls, added after 1945, carry the names of the Second World War dead.

The gate piers frame the view of the entrance to Pitzanger Manor from Ealing Green. Each has a sunken panel with a relief carving of olive branches, the right-hand panel inscribed THEY COME/ TRANSFIGURED BACK/ SECURE FROM CHANGE/ IN THEIR HIGH-HEARTED/ WAYS/ BEAUTIFUL EVERMORE/ AND WITH THE RAYS/ OF MORN ON THEIR WHITE/ SHIELDS OF EXPECTATION, a quotation from the Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration by the American poet James Russell Lowell (1865). The left gate pier is inscribed 1945/1918 and the right 1939/1914, aligned with the corresponding panels of names on the walls to either side. The wrought-iron gates have ornate scroll-work and an arched overthrow, embellished with the arms of the Borough.

The quadrant walls are faced with a series of raised stone panels, 23 each side, carved with the names of the 1,051 fallen of the First World War. The walls were raised above the moulded coping to incorporate a band of narrow panels, 23 each side to correspond with those beneath, inscribed with names of those who fell in the Second World War. A frieze bears the inscription IN PROUD AND GRATEFUL MEMORY OF THE MEN AND WOMEN OF THIS/ BOROUGH WHO LAID DOWN THEIR LIVES IN THE GREAT WARS OF 1914-1918 AND 1939-45, with a moulded cornice above. The flanking walls bear a further 10 panels inscribed with names of Second World War dead, which number 510 overall.

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, 5 October 2017.