Norwich War Memorial
Lutyens’s Norwich war memorial, commissioned in 1926 amid earlier failed schemes, is an unusually modest low cenotaph incorporating a Stone of Remembrance with gilt flambeaux, unveiled in 1927, later moved and reoriented beside the new Town Hall, with the city’s roll of honour provided on a wooden board he also designed.
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Description
There had been many ambitious schemes for memorials in Norwich, all of which founded due to over-ambition or popular criticism. Charles Bignold took the matter in hand upon being elected Lord Mayor in 1926 and decided that the construction of a physical memorial should be accompanied by improvements to two local hospitals. Lutyens was appointed and the memorial is one of his most modest – a simple, low cenotaph incorporating a Stone of Remembrance with gold flambeaux at either end.
It was unveiled on 9 October 1927 by Sir Ian Hamilton and Bertie Withers, whose name had been drawn at random from applications from local ex-servicemen. The memorial was relocated from its original location in front of the Guildhall in 1938 following completion of the new Town Hall to be part of a new garden overlooking the Market Place. It was refurbished, turned through 180° so that it now faces the Town Hall and rededicated on 11 November 2011.
The names of the Fallen are incorporated on a wooden Roll of Honour (also designed by Lutyens). (Contributor: Tim Skelton)
Bibliography
, Pevsner, N. and Wilson, B. (1997) Norfolk 1: Norwich and north-east. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
