Chesapeake Monument

The Chesapeake Monument is a memorial located in Southsea, Portsmouth, built in 1862 by architects T.J. Willis and S.J. Nichol. It is made of granite, stone, and bronze. The monument features a polished granite column set on a square sandstone base with a corniced pedestal. At the top, there is a foliated stone capital surmounted by a bronze tripod and a naval crown. The base of the column includes a bronze relief, a scroll band, and dolphin heads at the corners.

This monument commemorates the comrades who fell in battle or died from disease and accident during the four-year commission of HMS Chesapeake from 1857 to 1861. It bears several inscriptions, including a list of those killed and those who died of wounds during the attack on the Taku Fort in China on June 25, 1859, as well as the names of crew members and marines who died during the commission. Additionally, there is a bronze relief depicting seamen and marines landing to assault the Taku forts, along with place names such as Peiho, Peking, Jeddah, and Calcutta, and references to India from 1857 to 1858, Arabia from 1859 to 1859, and China from 1859 to 1861.