page_title: York City War Memorial
section_title: History and design
hierarchical_section_title: York City War Memorial / History and design
caption_attribution_description: English: The war memorial on Leeman Road in York, North Yorkshire. Taken on the afternoon of Thursday the 21st of October 2010.
context_page_description: The York City War Memorial is a First World War memorial designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and located in York in the north of England. Proposals for commemorating York's war dead originated in 1919 but proved controversial. Initial discussions focused on whether a memorial should be a monument or should take on some utilitarian purpose. Several functional proposals were examined until a public meeting in January 1920 opted for a monument. The city engineer produced a cost estimate and the war memorial committee engaged Lutyens, who had recently been commissioned by the North Eastern Railway to design their own war memorial, also to be sited in York. Lutyens' first design was approved, but controversy enveloped proposals for both the city's and the NER's memorials. Members of the local community became concerned that the memorials as planned were not in keeping with York's existing architecture, especially as both were in close proximity to the ancient city walls, and that the NER's memorial would overshadow the city's.
context_section_description: The memorial was unveiled a year after the North Eastern Railway War Memorial, at a ceremony on 25 June 1925, which was attended by large crowds. Prince Albert, the Duke of York (later King George VI), performed the unveiling and the Archbishop of York Cosmo Gordon Lang gave a dedication. The Duchess of York had earlier that day unveiled the Five Sisters Window in York Minster, dedicated to "women of the Empire" killed in the First World War.
  Of Portland stone construction, the memorial is in the form of a 33-foot (10-metre) high, lozenge-shaped shaft with short, chamfered arms, moulded where they meet the shaft to form a cross. The cross stands on a base of four uneven rectangular blocks, below which is an undercut square platform, which itself stands on two square blocks. At the very bottom are two wide, shallow steps. The largest block of the base bears the only inscription on the memorial: "TO THE CITIZENS OF YORK 1914 – 1918, 1939 – 1945" on the south face, and "THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE" on the north; the dates of the Second World War were added later. As a memento, a bottle, several coins, and a newspaper were placed inside the structure. The memorial stands in a war memorial garden on the south bank of the River Ouse; it overlooks the river and the ruins of St Mary's Abbey on the opposite bank.
  When the accounts were reconciled in April 1926, there remained £400 in the memorial fund after Lutyens' fee of £122 and expenses of £20, so the committee commissioned Lutyens to design a set of entrance gates and a pair of supporting piers at the entrance to the memorial garden. The tall, rectangular piers are of limestone construction with cornices and finials in the shape of balls. The gates themselves are iron, painted black and gold, with iron panels linking them to the piers and an overthrow above, in the centre of which is the City of York's coat of arms. The gates open towards the memorial and are aligned with it. To wind up the memorial fund, the committee spent the remaining £17 on three wooden benches for the memorial garden.  
  The York City War Memorial was designated a grade II listed building (a status which offers statutory protection from demolition or modification, applied to structures of "special interest, warranting every effort to preserve them") on 10 September 1970 and the gates and piers were separately listed at grade II on 24 June 1983. The nearby NER memorial, just the other side of the city walls, was listed at grade II* (defined as "particularly important buildings of more than special interest" and applied to about 5.5% of listed buildings) on 10 September 1970. In November 2015, as part of commemorations for the centenary of the First World War, Lutyens' war memorials were recognised as a national collection and all of his free-standing memorials in England were listed or had their listing status reviewed; their National Heritage List for England list entries were also updated and expanded. As part of this process, the York City memorial was upgraded from grade II to grade II*.
caption: Lutyens designed the piers and gates at the entrance to the war memorial garden with remaining funds raised for the memorial.
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