Southampton Cenotaph Southampton Cenotaph The Southampton Cenotaph is a stone memorial at Watts Park in Southampton, England, originally dedicated to the casualties of the First World War. The memorial was designed by Edwin Lutyens and features a cenotaph on a plinth atop a gently curved pillar. The monument was intended to be abstract and graceful, encouraging a perception of the soldier having fallen in a peaceful, "beautiful death". Decisions over which names should be engraved on the Southampton Cenotaph proved controversial in the 20th century, but the design was heavily influential in determining the form of Lutyens' more famous Cenotaph in Whitehall.
The Cenotaph, Durban monument. The Cenotaph is set in a small garden walled in stone with memorial plaques and closed off from the street by a fence. The entrance to the garden, and the view of the front of the memorial, is guarded by a remarkable pair of large snarling Art Deco lions on high plinths. The ceramic decoration, with its clear lines, strong colours and sunburst, is in the same style, of which Durban features many fine examples. The neoclassical and Art Deco elements work harmoniously together to make this one of the most striking and lavishly decorated memorials of its kind.