Guildhall Square War Memorial

The City of Portsmouth War Memorial, also referred to as the Guildhall Square War Memorial, is a First World War memorial in Guildhall Square in the centre of Portsmouth, Hampshire, on the south coast of England. Portsmouth was and remains a port and home to a major naval dockyard. The dockyard and the armed forces provided much of the employment in the area in the early 20th century. As such, the town suffered significant losses in the First World War. Planning for a war memorial began shortly after the end of the conflict and a committee was established for the purpose. It selected a site adjacent to a railway embankment close to the Town Hall (renamed the Guildhall in 1926 when Portsmouth was granted city status) and chose the architects James Gibson and Walter Gordon, with sculptural elements by Charles Sargeant Jagger, from an open competition. The memorial consists of a semi-circular sunken recess (exedra) with a screen wall. Bronze panels fixed to the wall list the names of the city's dead. Archways in the wall lead out of Guildhall Square towards Victoria Park and the railway station, and balustrades lead away back into Guildhall Square, terminating in sculptures by Jagger of a life-size soldier and sailor with machine guns. In the centre is a cenotaph surmounted with an urn and decorated on the sides with relief carvings of wartime scenes. The Duke of Connaught unveiled the memorial on 19 October 1921, before its completion. Guildhall Square was redeveloped in the 1970s and the memorial was adjusted slightly and another wall was created adjacent to the site. The names of casualties from the Second World War and a monument to that conflict were added in the 21st century. The First World War memorial is a grade II* listed building.