Menin Gate offered to the citizens of Ypres for the ornament of their city and in commemoration of the days where the British Army defended it against the invader." Reaction to the Menin Gate, the first of the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission's Memorials to the Missing, ranged from its condemnation by the war poet Siegfried Sassoon, to praise by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. Sassoon described the Menin Gate in his poem 'On Passing the New Menin Gate', saying that the dead of the Ypres Salient would "deride this sepulchre of crime". Zweig, in contrast, praised the simplicity of the
Lancaster Gate Memorial Cross The memorial was originally sited on the footpath outside Christ Church and was unveiled on 27 March 1921 by John Maud, the Bishop of Kensington. It was seriously damaged in the Great Storm of 1987 but restored and moved to Lancaster Gate in 2002 as part of the Lancaster Gate street improvement scheme. The restored memorial was unveiled on 11 November (Armistice Day) 2002. In 2016, the first memorial service since then was held at the cross. Lancaster Gate Memorial Cross The Lancaster Gate Memorial Cross is a grade II listed war memorial in Lancaster Gate, London, commemorating residents of