Arch of Remembrance

The Arch of Remembrance is a war memorial in Victoria Park, Leicester, designed by Edwin Lutyens, comprising a monumental tetrapylon quadrifrons triumphal arch in a railed enclosure. It is one of 58 war memorials designed by Lutyens in the UK and elsewhere; the 44 in England are all listed buildings. The Arch of Remembrance became a listed building in 1955, and was upgraded to Grade I in 1996. It has been described as "the most imposing of Lutyens's English war memorials".

After the end of the First World War, a public meeting was held in Leicester on 14 May 1919, leading to the creation of a War Memorial Committee to propose a suitable memorial. Edwin Lutyens was selected as the architect.

His original plan involved crossing avenues of lime trees to create the plan of a cathedral, with a Cenotaph at the west end, and a Stone of Remembrance at the crossing, within a circular walled enclosure, inscribed with the names of the dead. The funds raised were not sufficient to realise this ambitious plan, and the proposals were scaled back in March 1923, limited to a single memorial archway which became the Arch of Remembrance.

Construction started on the revised memorial in 1923 and work was completed by 1925. The structure was begun by Nine Elms Stone and Masonry Works, and completed by Holloway Brothers (who also built the Cenotaph, Southampton for Lutyens). Due to a continuing shortfall of funding, the War Memorial Committee took out a bank loan to pay for the works to be completed, with five members as guarantors.

The Portland stone memorial, a square plan triumphal arch with four legs, is 69 feet, 4¼ inches (approximately 21m) tall, with large arched openings on the main axis to the northwest and southeast, with smaller lower arches to the northeast and southwest. The main axis is aligned with the sunrise on 11 November. The width, heights and depths of the arches are in simple 2:4:1 proportions: the larger arches are 18 feet (5.5 m) wide, 36 feet (11 m) tall and 9 feet (2.7 m) deep; and the smaller arches are 12 feet (3.7 m) wide, 24 feet (7.3 m) tall and 6 feet (1.8 m) deep. Stone wreaths carved in relief beside the arches encircle the inscribed dates "MCM/ XIV" (1914) and "MCM/ XIX" (1919). Above is a heavy attic, bearing the arms of the city of Leicester in relief carving, which is stepped back, and then topped by a low dome. The tetrapylon/quadrifons arch is similar to his later India Gate design.

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