Cenotaph & Garden of Remembrance, City Hall, Donegall Square, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 5GS

The Cenotaph and Garden of Remembrance at City Hall in Belfast is a war memorial completed in 1927 to designs by Sir Alfred Brumwell Thomas, the architect of City Hall itself. It forms a major element in the setting of City Hall and is the most significant of the group of memorials within the grounds.

The monument was built to commemorate the Ulster soldiers who perished during the First World War of 1914-18. During the 1920s, Brumwell Thomas was consulted on the rearrangement of the City Hall grounds and the associated monuments. His designs, prepared in 1924, were adopted and construction commenced in 1925. The main contract was undertaken by W.J Campbell and Son, builders, while the architectural sculptors Purdy and Millard, a local firm based in Belfast, executed the stone carving and inscriptions. The Cenotaph and Garden of Remembrance were unveiled by Field Marshall the Viscount Allenby on Armistice Day, 11th November 1929.

The thirty foot high cenotaph in Portland stone is an empty tomb, commemorating the fallen whose remains rest elsewhere. It is composed of a massive structure with intersecting pediments. Providing a background on either side of this vertical monument is a semi-circular colonnade of Corinthian columns erected in 1929. The tall columns are paired and stand on mutual plinths, supporting a cornice decorated with roundels and dentils. At the focus of the arcade is a Lutyensesque monument in Portland stone consisting of an inscribed base over a plinth of three shallow steps, with a pair of pilasters front and back supporting an intricate pediment of rosettes, dentils and acanthus leaves. Intersecting with this on either side are lower pairs of pilasters surmounted by wreaths.

The Garden of Remembrance is a sunken paved area in front of the cenotaph, encompassing the western side of City Hall, separated from the rest of the grounds by limestone balustrading. In recent times the garden, steps and paving have been altered and rearranged. The monument is fittingly severe in its lines and appropriately sombre in mood, creating with its sanctuary-like setting an atmosphere of peace and repose whilst responding to City Hall itself.

The structure is built in Portland limestone with some bronze enrichments. It is the only Cenotaph in Northern Ireland and thus the principal war memorial. Its austere classicism reflects its purpose and it is a fine example of the type by an architect of note.