There are 137 Grade II* listed war memorials in England, out of over 4,000 listed war memorials. In the United Kingdom, a

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

is a building or structure of special historical or architectural importance; listing offers the building legal protection against demolition or modification, which requires permission from the

local planning authority A local planning authority (LPA) is the local government body that is empowered by law to exercise urban planning functions for a particular area. They exist in the United Kingdom and India. United Kingdom Mineral planning authorities The role ...

. Listed buildings are divided into three categories—Grade I, Grade II*, and Grade II—which reflect the relative significance of the structure and may be a factor in planning decisions. Grade I is the most significant and accounts for 2.5% of listed buildings, while Grade II accounts for 92%. Grade II* is the intermediate grade accounting for the remaining 5.5%; it is reserved for "particularly important buildings of more than special interest". A war memorial listed at Grade II* may be of particular artistic interest or accomplishment, of a highly unusual design, or of significant historical interest below that required for Grade I. It is explicitly unnecessary for the architect or sculptor to be well known in order for a memorial to be listed at Grade II*. As part of the commemorations of the centenary of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...

—the government body responsible for listing in England—is running a project with the aim of significantly increasing the number of war memorials on the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...

. This list includes only memorials that are Grade II* listed buildings in their own right. Memorials which are not free-standing—such as a plaque on a church wall—or which form part of the

curtilage In common law, the curtilage of a house or dwelling is the land immediately surrounding it, including any closely associated buildings and structures, but excluding any associated " open fields beyond". In feudal times every castle with its depen ...

of a listed building—such as a sculpture within a building—but do not have their own entry on the

are not included. War memorials in England take a wide variety of forms and commemorate centuries of conflicts, though memorials to conflicts and the soldiers who fought in them—rather than exclusively commemorating victorious commanders—only started to be commonplace after the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armie ...

in 1815, which ended the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

. The aftermath of the

(1914–1918) produced significantly more memorials than any other single conflict; thus this list is dominated by First World War memorials, many of which were later re-dedicated or added to reflect losses from the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

(1939–1945). The list below also features five memorials to the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...

(1899–1902), to which around 1,000 memorials were built in Britain, four commissioned specifically to commemorate the Second World War, and one each to the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (1754� ...

(1756–1763) and the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

(1853–1856).Corke, pp. 4–9.

Memorials

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Grade II listed war memorials in England Monuments and memorials in England War memorials Grade II* listed monuments and memorials

Memorials

See also

References