National Memorial Arboretum & Armed Forces Memorial.

I visited the National Memorial Arboretum on Friday, a most unusual site with more than 130 memorials dedicated primarily to military forces but also including civil and personal remembrances.

The site's a reclaimed one and currently suffering greatly from flooding and water-logging on a large section of it. It was a shame to see some of this but it looks like they're really working on improving things. I didn't really know what to expect but the view on leaving the visitors centre is decidedly strange, near as far as the eye can see are slabs, plaques, statuary and sculptures all with an intense meaning for those that erected them. Overshadowing all the memorials small and large is the giant mass of the National Armed Forces Memorial, dedicated to all those lost in the line of duty since the Second War.

Some of the memorials are really rather striking, particularly, for me, two sections of Railway line; one from the Sumatra Railway & another from The Burma Railway. These are attended closely by the original Lychgate erected at the Changi Prison Cemetery by the prisoners & a small museum erected by COFEPOW dedicated to the specific horrors faced by those in captivity in the Far East, very strong stuff & exceptionally moving.
Some may be seen as controversial, such as the shot at dawn memorial, & others were really rather disturbing, to me, like the Stillbirth trusts section, but all seem valid as they obviously mean a great deal to the groups that were prepared to put the effort into making a permanent mark.
One particularly nice thing being done there is providing safe haven for many neglected memorials from demolished buildings, reused sites, or defunct firms that now have a permanent place to reside on public display.

The Armed Forces Memorial appeared both striking & fitting to me, the path to it being guarded by the 49th Division's Bear:












Within it's outer walls are 2 more parabolas of stone, one of which has an opening in it about half way along:


This is inscribed on it's inside face with these words:


On the other side of the wall the crack is formed by a stone door being opened as part of a Bronze scene:








Across the way from this vignette, with a large, low, cenotaph between is another scene:










The statues are of the finest quality to my eye, and seem most appropriate to the memorials subject matter. Perhaps most sobering of all is the sheer amount of blank space on the faces of the memorial waiting to take the names of those losses to come...


The whole edifice struck me as a fitting tribute to those that pay the ultimate price for us.

Cheers,
Adam.

 

Cheers for photos , Adam.
Not been there yet.
Early days yet , I expect it will all come together with a few years growth.

 

Back onto WW2 events;

The Burma Railway Memorial:


The Lychgate from Changi POW cemetery:


& the original plans for it as displayed in the COFEPOW building:


The Prisoners of War Memorial:

 

Normandy veterans memorial.
The large stones are named for each of the beaches (Sword in the foreground) and the trees behind represent operations such as Pegasus:


Royal Engineers:


AJEX:


First Army:


ATS:


DEMS Gunners:




Resistance:


RA:




Home Front:


Fusiliers:


Royal Logistics Corps:


RTR (No, it isn't in an ornamental pond, it's flooded.) :




Berlin Airlift:


And some less specifically WW2 ones:

Gallipoli:


Yangtse Incident:


RNLI:


RUC:

 

I have read that the wood that makes the "Polar Bears" Memorial should turn white with age, is that true?

 

Why are my pictures not there

Chris
Hi Chris, after some head-scratching I've sorted the pictures, they had the 'http' prefix twice within the image code. The easiest way to get pictures from photobucket to 'stick' is just to paste the stuff from the 'IMG code' Box directly into a post.

Cheers,
Adam.

 

Hard to say Andy, confusing place but I'd say about 3 hours to have a complete shufti around.

Really can't emphasise enough what an odd site it is, I get the feeling that it needs 20 years of arboreal growth to turn it into something really rather special though.
It is currently an Arboretum with somewhat limited trees.

 

VP
Thanks for these photos. I know I will never get there, so very much appreciated. Hope you don't mind that I took a couple of copies for my files ...?

The ATS memorial was particularly relevant to part of my research.

dbf

 

Hope you don't mind that I took a couple of copies for my files ...?
If I minded about anyone taking my photos for their WW2 related researches I wouldn't put them on the web mate .

Got a lot more from the NMA I should perhaps dig out.
Despite it's serious intent I couldn't help but smile at the misspelling/typo in the word 'Communications' on the Post Office memorial.


(Multiple clicks on attached pictures open them up to full readable size.)