Combined War Memorial - Central Gardens, Bournemouth, Dorset, UK
Posted by: 
Dragontree
N 50° 43.295 W 001° 52.921
30U E 578915 N 5619460
This grand war memorial stands within Bournemouth's Central Gardens in the Pleasure Gardens.
Waymark Code: WMDCM9
Location: Southern England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 12/25/2011
Views: 3
Wikipedia describes the memorial:
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'The Pleasure Gardens are still an important landmark and the Central Gardens contain the town's impressive war memorial, guarded by two stone lions. The War Memorial was installed in 1921 when the Borough Council moved to the adjacent Mont Dore Hotel, which it still occupies. Various building works were carried out - such as the Saint Stephen's Road bridge - to stamp the municipal identity on this area of the town; the war memorial was one of them. It was designed by Bournemouth's deputy architect Albert Edward Shervey, who copied the two lions (one sleeping, the other awake and roaring) from Antonio Cavona's lions which guarded the tomb of Pope Clement XIII.'
The inscriptions on the memorial read:
'To the glorious memory of
the men and women of the
County Borough of Bournemouth
who made the supreme
sacrifice in the Great War
1914 - 1918.'
'In memory of
the servicemen and women
who have bravely given
their lives for their country
since World War II.'
'In
Honoured
Memory
of the
men and women
of the
County Borough
of Bournemouth
who gave their
lives in the
1939 - 1945
war'
The memorial was unveiled by Major Generaal J E B Seely and was dedicated by the Bishop Suufragan of Southampton. Mr W A Hoare was the sculptor with the architect being E A Shervy.
The design of the memorial is a representation of a 'Temple of Memory'. The stone monument stands on a base with four steps in a balustrade area. At each corner is a Doric column with classical urns and lions guard the approach steps. Bronze wreaths can be seen at the top of each side of the monument.