Merchant Seamen’s Memorial Garden

This moving spot is a memorial to the Marine and Navy dead of both world wars. The 1914-1918 memorial was designed by Edwin Lutyens. A plaque nearby marks the execution spot of Sir Thomas More in 1535 and ‘120 others’.

Tower Hill EC1
Tube: Tower Hill

Battle Of Britain

‘Our Finest Hour’ is marked by this collage of figures, iconic images of the time, cast  in bronze by sculptor Peter Day. The memorial bears the names of the 2,936 pilots, from all over the world, who fought with the Royal Air Force in 1940.

Victoria Embankment SW1
Tube: Westminster
www.bbm.org.uk

Kindertransport

Unveiled in 2006, this bronze sculpture is by a former Kindertransport refugee, Frank Meisler. It bears 16 milestones, each the name of a city from where some 10,000 Jewish children fled Nazi persecution for refuge in Britain from 1938 to 1940 - most losing their parents.

Liverpool Street EC2
Tube: Liverpool Street

Fleet Air Arm

For me, perhaps the most striking and beautiful statue in London. The figure, called Daedalus, shows a pilot bearing wings and is by James Butler RA. He is responsible for the Dolphins in Dolphin Square and also worked on the Albert Memorial renovation.

Victoria Embankment SW1
Tube: Embankment/Westminster

Royal Air Force

First put up in 1923, to remember the men of the Royal Flying Corps of WW1,  this column faces across the river, towards France. The
‘I Bare You On Eagles Wings And Brought You Onto Myself’ carved on it is not a misspelling but a biblical quotation.

Victoria Embankment SW1
Tube: Westminster

Imperial Camel Corps

The Camel Corps fought in the Sinai and Palestine from 1916-18, during World War 1, where it lost nearly 350 men. One of its four battalions was British, the others Australian or New Zealanders. An odd unit, with an odd, under-scale but unique memorial.

Victoria Embankment SW1
Tube: Embankment