City of Gloucester War Memorial

A war memorial, comprising a monument and a Wall of Remembrance, the monument erected in 1925 to designs by A P Frith, and the wall and surrounding precinct, by Waller and Son, added in 1933.

MATERIALS: Portland stone, with bronze plaques and sculpture.

PLAN: the precinct describes a triangle with three curved sides, within which the cenotaph is placed centrally; to the south side, the area is bounded by the Wall of Remembrance. To the other two sides, the raised precinct is defined by kerbs.

DESCRIPTION: the memorial takes the form of a central cenotaph, dating from 1925, and the Wall of Remembrance, added in 1933. The cenotaph stands on a three-stepped platform, with a deep foot and tapering sides. The top steps in, and is surmounted by a cast bronze figure of a sphinx, the emblem of the Gloucestershire Regiment, whose dead from the First World War are commemorated on the cenotaph. The sphinx, and the bronze plaques, were made by H H Martyn of Cheltenham. The narrow north side has an inlaid, cast bronze laurel wreath. The broad east and west sides carry large, bronze plaques with raised, laurel borders which carry the inscriptions and names. One bears the inscription TO/ THE MEMORY OF/ THE FALLEN OF THE/ 1/5TH AND 2/5TH BATTALIONS/ THE GLOUCESTERSHIRE/ REGIMENT/ 1914-1918. Others are inscribed with the names of the dead.

Behind the cenotaph is a long, low, curving Wall of Remembrance, broken in the centre by iron gates, with saltire rails and the sphinx emblem, and clustered piers, topped by the cipher GR and a crown. The wall has a Moderne sensibility; it terminates at either end in a slightly tapering pier with a stepped cap, and the centre of each section steps up slightly in two stages. These raised sections each carry, in bronze lettering 1914-1918 / TO THE MEN OF GLOUCESTER. Beneath these, the walls carry bronze plaques commemorating all those from across the city in all services who died in the First World War, including the arms of Gloucester. In the lower register of the eastern wall are the later plaques added to honour those who died in the Second World War, under lettering giving the dates of that war. At the end of this row of plaques is a list of 17 women of the city who died during the bombing of Gloucester, with the inscription THESE WOMEN ALSO GAVE UP THEIR LIVES. There is a further plaque commemorating the city’s casualties from the Korean War.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the Wall of Remembrance stands at the rear of a precinct created as part of the same design, with the cenotaph and wall standing on ground raised above street level, and divided from the street by kerb walls of Portland stone with stone coping, extending from the terminals of the Wall of Remembrance and curving around to the corner of the street. The structure includes three flights of steps up into the memorial, those to the corner of the plot curving, and a paved walkway with a continuous step curving around the inner face of the wall.