Rochdale Cenotaph is a First World War memorial on the Esplanade in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, in the north west of England. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, it is one of seven memorials in England based on his Cenotaph in London and one of his more ambitious designs. The memorial was unveiled in 1922 and consists of a raised platform bearing Lutyens' characteristic Stone of Remembrance next to a 10-metre (33 ft) pylon topped by an effigy of a recumbent soldier. A set of painted stone flags surrounds the pylon. A public meeting in February 1919 established a consensus to create a monument and a fund for the families of wounded servicemen. The meeting agreed to commission Lutyens to design the monument. His design for a bridge over the River Roch was abandoned after a local dignitary purchased a plot of land adjacent to Rochdale Town Hall and donated it for the site of the memorial. Lutyens revised his design, and Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby, unveiled the memorial on 26 November 1922. It is a Grade I listed building, having been upgraded in 2015 when Lutyens' war memorials were declared a national collection.
Background In the aftermath of the First World War and its unprecedented casualties, thousands of war memorials were built across Britain. Almost all towns and cities erected some form of memorial to commemorate their fallen. The mayor of Rochdale called a public meeting on 10 February 1919, three months after the armistice, to discuss proposals for the town's commemorations. Consensus was that the town should have a monument and a fund to provide for wounded servicemen, their families, and the families of the 2,000 war dead from Rochdale. Public subscription raised £29,443 10s, covering the £12,611 cost of the memorial.
Commissioning The public meeting in February 1919 agreed to appoint Sir Edwin Lutyens as architect for the project. He was one of the most prominent designers of war memorials in Britain, described by Historic England as "the leading English architect of his generation". Before the war, Lutyens established a reputation designing country houses for wealthy patrons, but the war had a profound effect on him. From 1917 onwards, he dedicated much of his time to memorialising the casualties. He went on to design The Cenotaph on Whitehall in London, which became the focus for the national Remembrance Sunday commemorations and subsequently the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing on the Somme in France and many other memorials in Britain and the Commonwealth. Lutyens proposed a memorial bridge crossing the River Roch in front of Rochdale Town Hall. At that time the river flowed openly through the town centre but has since been culverted. On either side of the bridge would have been recumbent effigies of a soldier lying on a bier and a Stone of Remembrance on the bridge. The plan was abandoned when Alderman William Cunliffe, a former mayor, bought a dilapidated 18th-century house (known as "the Manor House" or "the Orchard") on the opposite side of the river and donated the site for the war memorial. The site had particular poignancy as the building had been used as a recruiting station during the war. Lutyens' new design involved demolishing the Manor House to make way for a cenotaph and a Stone of Remembrance. Lutyens designed the stone for use in Imperial War Graves Commission cemeteries but it also features in several of his war memorials. Rochdale's cenotaph is among seven others by Lutyens in England based on the one on Whitehall, and is among the most ambitious of his designs to come to fruition.
Design
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