Thiepval Memorial
The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme is a war memorial to 72,337 missing British and South African servicemen who died in the Battles of the Somme of the First World War between 1915 and 1918, with no known grave.[1] It is near the village of Thiepval, Picardy in France. A visitors' centre opened in 2004.[2] Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, Thiepval has been described as "the greatest executed British work of monumental architecture of the twentieth century".[3]
Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme
1 August 1932 by Edward, Prince of Wales
50°3′2″N 2°41′9″E / 50.05056°N 2.68583°E
near
Sir Edwin Lutyens
73,337
Funerary and memory sites of the First World War (Western Front)
Cultural
i, ii, vi
Location[edit]
The Memorial was built approximately 200 m (660 ft) to the south-east of the former Thiepval Château, which was located on lower ground, by the side of Thiepval Wood. The grounds of the original château were not chosen as this would have required the moving of graves, dug during the war around the numerous medical aid stations.
Design and inauguration[edit]
Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the memorial was built between 1928 and 1932 and is the largest Commonwealth Memorial to the Missing in the world. It was inaugurated by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) in the presence of Albert Lebrun, the President of France, on 1 August 1932.[1] The unveiling ceremony was attended by Lutyens.[4] It was the last of the special memorials in Flanders and Picardy to be unveiled.[5]
The memorial dominates the rural scene and has 16 brick piers, faced with Portland stone. It was originally built using French bricks from Lille but was refaced in 1973 with Accrington brick.[2][6] The main arch is aligned east to west.[7] The memorial is 140 ft (43 m) high above the level of its podium, which to the west is 20 ft (6.1 m) above the level of the adjoining cemetery.[7][8] It has foundations 19 ft (5.8 m) thick, which were required because of extensive wartime tunnelling beneath the structure.
It is a complex form of memorial arch, comprising interlocking arches of four sizes. Each side of the main arch is pierced by a smaller arch, orientated at a right angle to the main arch. Each side of each of these smaller arches is then pierced by a still smaller arch and so on.[9] The keystone of each smaller arch is at the level of the spring of the larger arch that it pierces; each of these levels is marked by a stone cornice.[10] This design results in 16 piers, having 64 stone-panelled sides.[9] Only 48 of these are inscribed, as the panels around the outside of the memorial are blank.[11]
According to the architectural historian Stephen Games, the memorial is composed of two intersecting triumphal arches, each with a larger central arch and two smaller subsidiary arches, the arches on the east–west facades being taller than those on the north–south, all raised up from what is loosely a square four-by-four tartan grid plan.[12] The main arch is surmounted by a tower.[9] In the central space of the memorial a Stone of Remembrance rests on a three-stepped platform.[10]
The memorial represents the names 72,246 officers and men (see below) and Lutyens's ingenious geometry arises out of the attempt to display these names in compact form, rather than in the longer, lower and linear form taken by other memorials to the missing of the war, such as those at Loos, Pozières and Arras.[1][12][13]
Seven Victoria Cross recipients are listed on the memorial, under their respective regiments.[15] All British unless otherwise noted:
Also commemorated are:
Ceremonies and services[edit]
Each year on 1 July (the anniversary of the first day on the Somme) a major ceremony is held at the memorial.[1] There is also a ceremony on 11 November, beginning at 1045 CET.
Works cited