Battle of Britain Monument

[Ralf Roggeveen]

While waiting for the Biggin Hill pictures to be developed, I went into Central London today to see the new Battle of Britain Memorial which was unveiled yesterday ('Battle of Britain Day', the nearest Sunday to September 15th every year) by Prince Charles.

This Memorial was made by a young sculptor called Paul Day and there has been some fuss about it. It looks a bit like two slices of cheescake laid facing & parallel to one another. They have the names of everyone of 'The Few' killed in the Battle (by nationality, e.g. British, Polish, Rhodesian, Irish, etc.) Much of it is what I think is called 'Bas Relief', i.e. half flat, half statues emerging from the flat surface. It's Politically Correct in including things like women & civilians, though maybe GROUND CREW could have had a bit more prominence? (I'm kind of conscious of them after having personally, a few hours ago, being in some rather uncomfortable bomb shelters they occupied at Biggin Hill ! - and I wasn't being bombed).

Well, you can judge the BoB Memorial for yourselves from these digital shots. In #1 you can see the end of one of the slices - that's part of the Houses of Parliament beyond, right below Big Ben, behind the trees.

#2 shows a Ju-88 dropping a bomb on my house (missed! and hit the one across the road, killing five people). #3 is another general view with the two slices either side &, as you can see, people may walk between them & they were attracting plenty of attention. #4 shows the view across the River Thames with the famous 'London Eye' opposite...

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Sorry, the walk between the two slices wasn't so clear from that shot! BTW it cost £1.65m which seems rather a lot...more than $3m? Cheap at the price for the sheer Hell of beating the Luftwaffe!

Perhaps the most prominent part of the new Memorial is this 'Scramble' scene with the pilots' statues 'running out' at you - or their imaginary Hurricanes & Spitfires. I rather like it, though they turned out a bit smaller than I'd thought from other people's photographs before I saw the real thing (maybe they're about 2/3rds the size of real people).

What does everyone else think of it? :confused:

[Moses03]

I like the idea of it. It's hard to get the full effect from just the photos but I guess I would like to see something larger- away from the busy street. A place you can go to sit down maybe and reflect on the past.

I do like the "scramble" bit as well.

Thanks for posting the pics Ralf. :icon29:


Moses

[stiz]

i dont think its that bad.

Also you'd have a heck of a hard time finding a quite street in London where it isn't going to get vandalised..

[Ferry_vO]

I like the 'scramble' part with the pilots coming out of the wall.

Not too sure about the other parts though; I feel they crammed to many details in there.

[Jaxon]

I like the idea.
Showing scenes of the history is much better than another wall with names on it.

If you really do not expect to see family members there, you probably will walk by and maybe make a quick shot with your digicam.

But this on is on the street and not on a special place where you need to go.

The Terror of War was right there in the streets, so placing the monument in there is very welcome for me.

People that do not know of it, and stumble about it, will probably make a rest and explore the scenes shown, even if only out of interest for the craftmanship - and that guy knows his job.

The "scramble scene", is a nice eyecatcher and the topic fits well to my initial idea when thinking of the BoB as well.

Good job!

Thx for sharing the pics,
Jaxon

[Hurricane]

Looks very interesting, i'm going to london in december but i'm not sure if i'll have time to go as i'm going to get my duke of edinburgh award. how close is it to st james' palace?

i think the setting of it on a street is a good idea, too many memorials are out of the way where people don't notice them

[Ralf Roggeveen]

It's not very far from St James' Palace - all you have to do is go down to Trafalgar Square, then down Whitehall and you're at the Houses of Parliament. The BoB Monument is just to the left of them, a little below the statue of Boadicea. As mentioned, it's easy to find being just the other side of the river from the London Eye.

I pray that this monument WON'T be vandalised, stiz! (It's probably well covered by CCTV if that makes you feel any better.) More painful than the evil ignorance of vandals is the innocent ignorance of those who wander past oblivious to the history behind such a memorial. But as you can see from those pictures, plenty of people were taking a reverential look at it, so there's Hope yet! :)