Establishing iconography: Designing the architecture of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries and memorials are visually stunning, but how did we create our unique visual identity? Discover the story here.

Architecture of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission

“The biggest single bit of work since any of the Pharaohs – and they only worked in their own country…”

Image: Tyne Cot Cemetery, instantly recognisable as a CWGC site

After the First World War, the then-Imperial War Graves Commission faced the enormous challenge of designing and creating cemeteries and memorials fit for the war dead of the Great War.

The above quote from Commission Literary Advisor Rudyard Kipling emphasises the scale of the Commission's task. 

Over 1.1 million men and women serving in the forces of the British Empire had lost their lives in the largest conflict the world had seen to date.

Where possible, each was to be afforded its own war grave, necessitating the construction of dedicated war cemeteries. Otherwise, those with no known grave would be commemorated on memorials to the missing.

Laying down our architectural principles

 

Image: "Graves of the Fallen" - Rudyard Kipling's illustrated guide to Commission cemeteries, published in 1919

To establish a clear visual identity for its proposed war cemeteries, Commission founder Sir Fabian Ware created a special committee in the summer of 1917 to take on the aesthetic burden.

Ware wanted to separate Commission sites from civilian cemeteries and burial grounds, firmly establishing them as places where the war dead lay in peace. Distinguishing architectural features and clear visual identity were paramount.

The Committee was spearheaded by Sir Frederic Kenyon. Kenyon, as Director of the British Museum, was one of Britain’s leading classists, well-versed in the architectural styles and principles of classical antiquity.

After a period of consultation, Kenyon laid out the committee’s recommendations and design principles in the 1918 report “War Graves: How the Cemeteries Abroad will be Designed”.

The report was a foundational document for the establishment of the Commission’s visual identity, calling on architects to reflect “the common and spirit of the nation, the common purpose of the Army, and the common sacrifice of the individual.”

"Although it is not desired that our war cemeteries should be gloomy places, it is right that the fact that they are cemeteries, containing the bodies of hundreds of thousands of men who have given their lives for their country, should be evident at first sight, and should be constantly present to the minds of those who pass by or who visit them.” – Sir Frederic Kenyon

This was further reinforced by the illustrated pamphlet “The Graves of the Fallen” by Rudyard Kipling. 

Initially, the Commission’s plan to not repatriate the war dead from France and Belgium was met with hostility by the British public.

Kipling’s guide, with illustrations visualising proposed cemeteries, with their unique look and feel, was instrumental in swaying public opinion toward the site.

Visual Identifiers

Image: The Stone of Remembrance and Cross of Sacrifice at Tyne Cot Cemetery, two of the most easily distinguishable Commission visual features

Kenyon’s report outlined the design elements inherent to Commission cemeteries. No two sites are identical, but they do feature some distinguishing architectural features and flourishes that make them instantly identifiable as a Commission cemetery.

• Surrounding stone walls
• Strong iron gates
• A registry box featuring a burials inventory and a plan of the site’s war grave plots and sites
• A shelter building containing the registry box or register (at larger sites)
• Central feature

The central features have become Commission visual icons in themselves: the Cross of Sacrifice and the Stone of Remembrance. More on these later.

Appointing the Architects

Some of the British Empire’s most famous architects were appointed to lead the Commission’s design endeavours. 

Incredibly well-regarded in their field, these three men would become the Commission’s first Principal Architects and had a key role in creating the Commission’s visual identity.
They were:

• Sir Reginald Blomfield
• Sir Herbert Baker
• Sir Edwin Lutyens

The original Principal Architects were later joined by Charles Holdon who became a major figure in establishing the Commission's aesthetic.

Important Commonwealth War Graves Commission design features

Commission headstones

Image: Iconic CWGC headstones at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery

We can’t talk about iconic Commission designs without examining our headstones.

With their smooth round top, clear carved typography, and easily identifiable unit markers, our headstones are instantly recognisable. While they may differ in material, the overall design aesthetic is almost entirely uniform for Commonwealth headstones.

Image: Baker's proposed heraldic CWGC headstones

A Headstone Commission was established in our earliest days, comprised of the Principal Architects, operational staff, National Gallery Director Charles John Holmes, and renowned graphic designer Leslie MacDonald Gill, to create the uniform headstone design.

A variety of designs were submitted, including proposals from Lutyens and Baker.

Baker suggested heraldic shields as an adornment, hoping to tie in the First World War with the medieval iconography of the Crusades. His designs featured a complex colour-coded system of bars, chevrons, and symbols to mark years of service, wounds, and awards.

Baker’s designs proved too complicated. Instead, a simpler format was chosen, reportedly resembling Lutyens’ ideas. Sadly, no photos of Lutyens’ submissions survive.

The rounded top of each headstone was intended to be neutral, allowing for the commemoration of all faiths and nationalities.

Regiment badges were included, alongside name, rank, date of death and personal inscriptions if provided. The personal inscriptions are often poignant and highly moving.

A unique upper-case typeface was created for headstone lettering by Leslie MacDonald Gill. Headstone lettering is carved with just enough depth to be clearly visible from up to four metres.

Image: MacDonald Gill's typography prototypes which now feature on nearly every CWGC headstone

Cross of Sacrifice

The final Cross of Sacrifice design came from Blomfield. Describing the Cross in his memoirs, Blomfield wrote:

“What I wanted to do in designing this cross was to make it as abstract and impersonal as I could, to free it from association with any particular style, and, above all, to keep clear of any of the sentimentalities of Gothic. This was a man’s war too terrible for any fripperies, and I hoped to get within range of the infinite in this symbol of the ideals of those who had gone out to die.”

Before this was settled on, Herbert Baker and Lutyens supplied design ideas, drawing on the crosses commonly seen in English country churchyards. 

Baker’s featured a bronze longsword on the front, which he named the ‘Ypres Cross’; it was engraved with a small bronze image of a sailing ship, symbolising the Royal Navy’s role in winning the war.

Blomfield bluntly said of his colleagues’ efforts: “runic monuments or gothic crosses have nothing to do with the grim horrors of the trenches”. He produced a more dramatically simple design with prominent cross-arms. 

Image: Architectural plans of The Cross of Sacrifice 

Like Baker, he incorporated a bronze sword called the ‘Sword of Sacrifice’, but he wrote that its meaning was pointedly “abstract and impersonal”. 

He wanted to avoid the “fripperies” and “sentimentalities of Gothic”: “I hoped to get within range of the infinite in this symbol of the ideals of those who had gone out to die”.

Blomfield’s design was ultimately chosen and would become a model for local war memorials across the UK.

Stone of Remembrance

Image: Original architectural plans of the Stone of Remembrance

In keeping with its desire for cemeteries to include a central feature, the Commission explored options for central focal points.

Lutyens was keen for a universal, non-religious symbol. Some of his mooted ideas included a solid bronze ball and a regularly chiming bell, before he conceived the now familiar stone, secular altar block.

It is designed with a principle called entasis and features no straight lines., a common design feature of the temples and monuments of classical antiquity. While nearly imperceptible to the naked eye, if you were to lie a group of stones out end-to-end, they would form a circle 1,800 feet in diameter.

The inscription “Their Name Liveth For Evermore” was suggested by Commission literary advisor Rudyard Kipling, shortened from Ecclesiasticus 44:14: “Their bodies lie buried in peace; but their names liveth for evermore.”

Lutyens also considered many possible names for the stone. He listed them in a letter to Ware, calling it his “stoneology”. 

Options included “The Battle Stone”, “The Stone of Peace”, “The Stone of Pity”, “The King’s Stone” and “Our Stone” – all conveying quite different messages and tones. Interestingly, the name that was finally chosen was not on the list.

Putting principles into practice: The First Commission War Cemetery

Image: Forceville Communal Cemetery & Extension

Just over 300 casualties of the First World War are buried in Forceville Communal Cemetery and Extension.

Forceville is not the largest site, not especially visually imposing as some of the more celebrated sites in France and Belgium. However, it is potentially the most interesting.

When you visit, you may not realise it, but you are standing in the first purpose-built Commission cemetery in the world.

Sites as large and visually arresting as Tyne Cot, Lijssenthoek, Bedford House, or Etaples owe the humble Forceville a debt. It was at this pioneering site that the Commission’s design principles were put into practice for the first time.

This was not the Commission’s original intention. The first sites earmarked for Commission treatment had been overrun in 1918 during the chaos of the German Spring Offensive.

The army cemeteries and burial grounds were inaccessible thus design work was postponed and shifted elsewhere. This also allowed Bloomfield the opportunity to leave his defining mark on three pilot sites:

• Louvencourt
• Forceville
• Le Treport

Image: Blueprints of Forceville Communal Cemetery

Blomfield had a hand in designing all three but it’s Forceville that most closely adhered to the principles laid out in the Kenyon Report.

But nothing is ever quite so simple. Question marks arise over the extent Blomfields influence on Forceville. Our records suggest that it was actually Charles Holden who lead the design of Forceville.

Certainly, the shelter buildings at Forceville bear the hallmarks of a Holden design: simple, unadorned white limestone. The altar on which the Stone of Remembrance sits also is remarkably basic but nonetheless effective.

It was likely that Blomfield instead adjusted and tweaked the overall scheme, likely as a result of trying to bring down costs. 

All organisations are cost-conscious, and the Imperial War Graves Commission was no different.

Later archives put Blomfield as chief architect on the Forceville project, so it was likely a collaborative effort, or Blomfield simply had final sign-off.

 

Image: Stone of Remembrance, headstones, and the boundary wall at Forceville

Either way, having a full cemetery was crucial to public acceptance of the wider commission, something Sir Fabian Ware was keenly aware of. 

It was hoped the physical, substantive vision of Forceville, with its rows of pristine headstones and gentle, peaceful surroundings, could give a tangible example of the Commission in action.

In September 1920, The Times published an account of visit made to the freshly inaugurated Forceville:

“The most perfect, the noblest, the most classically beautiful memorial that any loving heart or any proud nation could desire to their heroes fallen in a foreign land”

Forceville was a success – but as ever with major projects, it wasn’t without teething issues: the costs had overrun estimates; the Stone of Remembrance and Cross of Sacrifice were probably too big for the size of the plot.

However, the Commission drew on its learning experiences to complete the rest of its vast construction programme with confidence. Forceville was the first step in a legacy that has lasted over 100 years.

Second World War: New War, New Architecture

“After the lapse of many years the Commission is once more going into business on a large scale”- Lieutenant Colonel Sir Herbert Ellissen, IWGC Chief Financial Officer

While the forces of the British Empire encountered fewer casualties than in the Great War, the Second World War called for the Commission to design a whole new generation of cemeteries and memorials. 

Image: Architectural drawing of Bayeux War Cemetery designed by Phillip Hepworth

Such a major project called for a new generation of architects. Many of them had served either in the Great War or the Second World War, meaning this was a real labour of love for those involved in creating fitting places for commemoration for the Commonwealth’s war dead.

While the First World War was truly global, the Second World War saw British and Commonwealth troops engaged in fighting in nearly every corner of the globe.

From war graves in the frigid Arctic Circle to cemeteries in the mountainous highlands of Burma, this most modern war brought up fresh challenges.

New approaches to design were needed, as the globe-spanning nature of Second World War burial grounds required the use of different materials and designs. 

For example, in some of our Far East cemeteries, the usual CWGC headstones were unsuitable for local conditions, thus bronze grave markers have been installed.

Elsewhere, El Alamein War Cemetery features a high, stone wall, to protect the headstones within from biting desert erosion, demonstrating new thinking applied to new areas.

Even so, the architects were also free to express themselves within the framework of the design principles laid out in the Kenyon Report.

The Louis de Soisson-designed cemeteries in Italy, for example, draw on the forms of classical antiquity and Roman architecture for inspiration.

Sir Edward Maufe

Image: Maufe's original illustration of the Runnymede Memorial

Sir Edward Maufe was appointed Commission Principal Architect for the UK in 1943. Maufe was appointed as the Commission’s Principal Architect for the United Kingdom and on 31 March 1949 he was appointed their honorary Chief Architect and succeeded the late Sir Frederic Kenyon as the Commission’s Artistic Adviser.

Maufe was responsible for examining and recommending to the Commission the designs of all cemeteries and memorials of the Second World War, numbering around 65 major cemeteries and 19 Memorials.

Some of Maufe's most well-known contributions include the 1939-1945 Extensions to the Naval Memorials at Chatham, Portsmouth and Plymouth as well as the extension to the Mercantile Marine Memorial at Tower Hill. 

Maufe designed the Runnymede Memorial to the Air Forces of the Commonwealth, the Memorial at Golders Green Crematorium, the Canadian Pavilion in Brookwood Cemetery, the RAF Record Buildings in Brookwood, Cambridge and Harrogate, and also the Indian Army Cremation Memorials.

Louis de Soissons

The architect was born in Canada in 1890 and moved with his family to London as a child.

His son Philip was killed at the age of 17 while serving aboard HMS Fiji, which was sunk by German bombers off the coast of Crete on 22 May 1941. 

De Soissons was the Commission’s Chief Architect for Second World War cemeteries and memorials in Italy and Greece.

He designed over 40 cemeteries in these locations, where he was inspired by the monumental architecture of Ancient Rome and Greece, including those at Cassino, Rome, Phaleron and Rimini.

Henry J. Brown

Fighting raged across Asia during the Second World War. For the forces of the British Empire, this meant substantial campaigns in Burma, the borders of India, as well as Singapore, Hong Kong, and islands like Papua New Guinea.

Among those with responsibility for designing the cemeteries and memorials of the Far East was Henry J. Brown. As well as sites in Delhi, Kirkee, and Madras in India, Brown designed the magnificent Rangoon Memorial in Myanmar and Taukkyan War Memorial, the cemetery in which the memorial sits.

Brown had served with the Royal Engineers during the Second World War, reaching the rank of Major. His military service gave him considerable experience in organising works construction, something he would apply to his work with the Commission.

Phillip Hepworth

Phillip Hepworth joined the Commission in 1944 after he was appointed as Principal Architect for Northwestern Europe.

Hepworth designed 46 cemeteries for the Commission, the most famous of which is the Arnhem Oosterbeek Cemetery, located on one of the supply drop zones of the ill-fated Operation Market Garden airborne offensive. He also designed the Grosbeek Canadian War Cemetery.

The Memorials to the Missing at Bayeux and Dunkirk were also Hepworth designs.

Colin St. Clare Oakes

Image: The Original Plan for Kranji War Cemetery, including the winged Singapore Memorial

Colin St. Clare Oakes was appointed Senior Architect for India, Burma, and South East Asia in November 1945, having accompanied Sir Edward Maufe on a tour of India earlier in the year. He was promoted to Principal Architect for India and the South East District in 1947.

He had previously served in the Far East as a Captain in the Royal Artillery, seeing action in the Arakan and Burma. It was his familiarity with the region that saw his appointment.

Oakes designed the cemeteries at Kohima, Imphal and Gauhiti in India. His best-known work is likely the Kranji War Cemetery and its accompanying Air Forces Memorial in Singapore.

Amongst his other works are Kanchanaburi and Chungkai in Thailand, Sai Wan Bay in Hong Kong and Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery in Myanmar.

Ralph Hobday

Ralph Hobday joined the Commission's staff as Architect in North Africa on 22 July 1944 and took part in the preliminary designs of war cemeteries there, under the direction of Sir Hubert Worthington.

From 1946 to 1956, Hobday was responsible, under the general supervision of Sir Edward Maufe, R.A., for the design of war graves plots and of memorials in cemeteries in the United Kingdom.

During that time, he designed hundreds of small layouts all over the United Kingdom. In 1956, Hobday was appointed Senior Architect.

Sir Hubert Worthington

On 26 July 1943, Hubert Worthington was appointed the Commission’s Principal Architect for its 1939-1945 War Cemeteries and Memorials to the Missing in North Africa and Egypt. Following his appointment, he began an arduous tour of all cemeteries from the Canal Zone to Algeria, lasting for seven weeks. 

In 1945, Worthington visited Malta to select a site and prepare a design for the Malta Memorial, which he completed. He undertook a second tour to Egypt and North Africa in 1947, when he was accompanied by Lady Worthington. This was followed by further tours of inspection in 1953 and 1956 as well as in Tunisia in 1957, at the time of the unveiling of the memorial at Medjez-el-Bab.

In 1954, he was present at the unveiling of the El Alamein Memorial, which he designed, along with the war cemetery.

On 31 December 1955, he relinquished his appointment as Principal Architect but maintained an active interest and freely advised the Commission’s officials until his death.

Cemeteries of the future

Even now over a century since the end of the First World War and eight decades since the end of the Second World War, the work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission continues.

Between 2024 and 2025, we inaugurated two new sites commemorating war dead.

These represent interesting attitudes to cemetery and memorial design and highlight how our work in commemorating the fallen of the World Wars is an ongoing project.

Cape Town Labour Corps Memorial

Image: The Cape Town Labour Corps Memorial

The Cape Town Labour Corps Memorial is the first Commission war memorial built since the Second World War.

It commemorates by name more than 1,750 South Africans who served in all South African Military Labour Regiments and who died on the continent of Africa, or at sea in the South Atlantic or Indian Oceans between 3 August 1914 and 31 August 1921, and who have no known grave.

You may notice that this looks a little different to the great stone memorials to the missing dotted in Europe and Asia. That’s because we worked closely with local architects and collaborators to create a stunning memorial appropriate to the memory of those it commemorates.

The Cape Town Labour Corps Memorial’s landmark design was achieved by a South African national architectural design competition, endorsed by the Cape Institute for Architecture. 

The winner, Dean Jay architects, has created an original immersive design using African Iroko hardwood and South African Rustenburg granite bases. The concept has been brought to life by talented South African crafts people and specialists.

Loos British Cemetery Extension

Image: Artist's sketches of Loos British Cemetery Extension (© Valentin Bodenghien Architecte-Slap Paysage)

Loos British Cemetery Extension was inaugurated in September 2024 as the final resting place for soldiers discovered in northern France.

While the cemetery extension’s architecture is in line with the original Loos Cemetery, bearing the hallmarks of a classic CWGC First World War cemetery, it was built using modern methodologies.

Sustainability was at the forefront of Loos British Cemetery Extension. Where possible, material was reused to construct walls and entrance pathways, while horticulture planting reflects our commitment to improving biodiversity and sustainability in our sites worldwide.

So, while it has the look and feel of an 100-year old site, Loos British Cemetery Extension is stealthily a beacon of sustainable cemetery planning and construction.

Caring for our sites

We care for over 23,000 locations in 150 countries worldwide, including over 2,000 constructed war cemeteries.

Conserving our heritage is at the forefront of our global maintenance and horticultural teams’ work. Parts of our estate are over a century old. 

In some cases this aging has been accelerated with changing weather patterns and pollution, so renovation and refurbishment is a constant and evolving process for us.

Our policies have become more targeted, striking a balance between the effects of aging, caring for the environment and materials used to ensure the longevity of our estate.

Discover how we care for our sites today.