Croydon Cenotaph as at 2010
Wikimedia Commons
Croydon Cenotaph is a Grade II* listedStructure of particular architectural and/or historic interest deserving of special protection. memorial erected in Croydon, South London in 1921 to commemorate the local casualties of the First World War. It is particularly notable for the balance it strikes between military and domestic suffering[1]
The cenotaph is framed by two bronze statues of seated figures by the sculptor Paul Raphael Montford. One depicts a soldier of the East Surrey Regiment dressing his wounded arm; the other a grieving widow holding a child in her left arm and a letter in her outstretched right hand,[1] perhaps news that her husband has been killed in action.[2]
A commemoration of the war dead of the Second World War was subsequently added to the cenotaph, and in 1997 an additional inscription commemorating the dead in post-1945 conflicts was added.[1]
Inscription
1914 ⋅ 1918
1939 ⋅ 1945
AND IN MEMORY OF THOSE
WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN
WARS AND CONFLICTS SINCE
A TRIBUTE TO THE MEN
AND WOMEN OF CROYDON
WHO DIED AND SUFFERED