Norwich War Memorial is a First World War memorial in Norwich in Eastern England. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the last of his eight cenotaphs to be erected in England. The Norfolk Regiment was one of the first to enter combat after the declaration of the First World war. Approximately 33,000 men served overseas with the Nor Folks, though many more Norfolk men joined other regiments.
About Norwich War Memorial in brief
Norwich War Memorial is a First World War memorial in Norwich in Eastern England. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the last of his eight cenotaphs to be erected in England. The Norfolk Regiment was one of the first to enter combat after the declaration of the First World war. The 1st Norfolks participated at the Battle of Mons in August 1914. Approximately 33,000 men served overseas with the Nor Folks, though many more Norfolk men joined other regiments. Many towns and cities built memorials soon after the end of the war, but early attempts in Norwich proved abortive, each mired in controversy. When Charles Bignold was elected Lord Mayor of Norwich in 1926, he was determined that the city would have a war memorial before he left office. He took the initiative and commissioned Lutyen and the two men selected a site to the east of the Guildhall when the architect visited the city on 13 June 1927. The memorial was moved from its original location to become the centrepiece of a memorial garden between the market and the City Hall in 1938. The structure on which the garden is built was found to be unstable in 2004 and the memorial was closed off pending repairs which began in 2008. The work was completed in 2011 and it was rededicated on Armistice Day 2011 and is today a grade II* listed building.
In 2015, it became part of a “national collection” of lutyens’ war memorials. It is one of several memorials in the UK designed by the architect, including the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing and the Stone of Remembrance at Whitehall in London. It also features the names of Norwich’s 3,544 war dead on a roll of honour, which was installed in the city’s Castle in 1931. Lutyes also designed The CenotAPH on Whitehall, which became the focus for the national Remembrance Sunday commemorations. He was described by Historic England as ‘the leading English architect of his generation’ and ‘one of the world’s leading architects of the 20th century’. He is also responsible for the design of the Stone of Remembrance, which appears in all large Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries and in several of his civic memorials, including Norwich’s. A further £800,000 was allocated for the Roll of Honour, which is painted on the inside of the monument. The design and location of the memorial continued to be a source of controversy in the local community as some felt the memorial would not reveal the name of the dead.
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This page is based on the article Norwich War Memorial published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
