Qualla: Coventry War Memorial

Coventry War Memorial: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AJD, CC BY-SA 2.0. Mrs E. Bench was in the official party that watched Field Marshal Douglas Haig dedicate the Coventry War Memorial on 8 October 1927. Her name is unfamiliar today, but her qualifications for being there were unbearable: she had lost four sons in the First World War. Beside her stood Corporal Arthur Hutt, who had won a Victoria Cross at Poelcappelle in 1917 and survived. The names of 2,587 Coventrians killed in the Great War would be sealed inside the tower they were now unveiling, an 87-foot Art Deco pylon of reinforced concrete clad in Portland stone, raised on the high ground between the River Sherbourne and the River Sowe in the new 120-acre park that the city had bought as their living memorial.

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Image: AJD | CC BY-SA 2.0

Coventry War Memorial: The Park Came First

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Snowmanradio, CC BY-SA 4.0. Coventry City Council formed its war memorial committee in 1919, in the immediate shock of the war's end, and the question of what to build occupied them for years. They settled on a park rather than a single sculpture. £31,000 was raised to acquire 120 acres at Stivichall on the...

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Image: Snowmanradio | CC BY-SA 4.0

Coventry War Memorial: A Tower Designed Twice

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mintchocicecream, CC BY-SA 4.0. The committee struggled for funds, and Coventry became one of the last major British cities to complete its First World War memorial; the Liverpool Cenotaph followed only in 1930, Bristol's in 1932. Designs were sought from architects in 1923, and the commission went to local arc...

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Image: Mintchocicecream | CC BY-SA 4.0

Coventry War Memorial: Inside the Chamber

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Steve Cadman, CC BY-SA 2.0. Bronze doors added in 1928 open into a Chamber of Silence within the base of the tower. The doors carry the dates 1914 to 1918, and later 1939 to 1945, raised in relief alongside the cross. Inside is a roll of honour. The original list of 2,587 First World War names was joined af...

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Image: Steve Cadman | CC BY-SA 2.0

Coventry War Memorial: Rededicated and Rededicated Again

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Harry Mitchell, CC BY 4.0. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery rededicated the memorial after the Second World War, his presence binding the new losses to the original tower. In 2011 the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Big Lottery Fund paid for restoration. The original stepped octagonal stone platform was repl...

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Image: Harry Mitchell | CC BY 4.0