The Portland limestone Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner is one of Britain’s great public monuments and it considered by many to be a masterpiece of 20^th century sculpture.

Designed by sculptor Charles Sargeant Jagger working with the architect Lionel Pearson, it is dedicated to the 49,076 men of the Royal Regiment of Artillery who died in the First World War. The work is comprised of an enormous cannon on a large plinth, clad in carved scenes of battle. Around its pedestal stand three large bronze statues of gunners while a fourth lies dead under his coat. Jagger offers an uncompromising and unsentimental depiction of the battlefield, in stark contrast to the other allegorical public memorials of the time.

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DBR Conservation has joined DBR London’s comprehensive maintenance programme of the memorial with specialised conservation treatments on the carved frieze. This includes steam cleaning, consolidation and localised mortar repairs. The relief is further protected with lime based sheltercoats, which have been carefully blended with selected stone dusts, trass and wood ash to blend into the surrounding stone blocks.

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Click here to read DBR Conservation’s contribution about working on the Royal Artillery War Memorial in the English Heritage’s book on Great War Memorials.  

More projects by DBR Conservation teams can be found <a href="”> here.