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The Menin Gate Memorial
Design
The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing was designed by Sir
Reginald Blomfield. He was one of four Principle Architects
engaged in directing the construction of over 1,200 British
and Commonwealth cemeteries and memorials along the Western
Front for the Imperial War Graves Commission (now named the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission).
Hall of Memory
The memorial is built of reinforced concrete faced with
Euville stone and red brick. The single span Hall of Memory
(36.5 metres long and 20 metres wide) is covered in by a
coffered half-elliptical arch.
At both ends of the Hall of Memory there is an archway (9
metres wide and 14.5 metres high). There are two flat arches
on either side of it (3.5 metres wide and nearly 7 metres
high). Each of the flat arches is flanked on either side by an
engaged Doric column and surmounted by an entablature.
The photograph is taken looking towards the city centre. The
spire of the Cloth Hall (Lakenhalle) in the market place (Grote
Markt) is visible through the archway.
East Side
Over each of the two central arches there is a large panel for
the dedicatory inscription:
TO THE ARMIES
OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE
WHO STOOD HERE
FROM 1914 TO 1918
AND TO THOSE OF THEIR DEAD
WHO HAVE NO KNOWN GRAVE
Above the panel on the east side, looking away from the city
and facing the Ypres Salient battlefields, there is a lion
lying down.
This feature was included to mark the fact that the
Meenenpoorte (Menen Gate) at the start of the war in 1914 was
guarded by two stone lions.
West Side
Above the panel on the west side, facing the town, there is a
sarcophagus with a flag and a wreath.
Loggias on the Ramparts
Loggias run along the length of the north and south sides of
the building on the ramparts.
North and South Staircases
In the centre of both the north and the south sides of the
Menin Gate a broad staircase leads from the Hall of Memory up
to the ramparts and the loggias.
The inscription over the entrance to the northern staircase
is:
THEY SHALL RECEIVE A CROWN OF GLORY THAT
FADETH NOT AWAY
The inscription over the entrance to the southern staircase
is:
IN MAIOREM DEI GLORIAM
HERE ARE RECORDED NAMES
OF OFFICERS AND MEN WHO FELL
IN YPRES SALIENT BUT TO WHOM
THE FORTUNE OF WAR DENIED
THE KNOWN AND HONOURED BURIAL
GIVEN TO THEIR COMRADES IN DEATH
Engraved Names
The memorial contains the names of 54,896 officers and men
from all the overseas British and Commonwealth forces who fell
in the Ypres Salient before 16 August 1917.
Names are engraved in Portland stone panels fixed to the inner
walls of the Hall, to the sides of the staircases and inside
the loggias on the north and south sides of the building.
This memorial does not include the names of the missing of New
Zealand and Newfoundland forces, who are named on separate
memorials.
"Copyright
Les Parkin © 2007. All rights reserved."
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