War memorials

London: Waterloo Station

Status: Listed Grade II
Architect: John Robb Scott & Charles. E. Whiffen
Location: London, England

The Victory Arch at Waterloo Station commemorates 585 servants of the London & South Western Railway who lost their lives in the Great War. This monumental entrance to the station by the corner of York Road was an afterthought to the reconstruction and enlargement of the terminus (which originally opened in 1848) begun in 1908. the architect to the railway was John Robb Scott. The final phase of the rebuilding was designed in 1916 but executed in 1919-22. The sculpture of the groups flanking the great arch was Charles E. Whiffen.

John Betjemen commented that Scott was determined to outdo Ralph Knott’s nearby Country Hall and that “He had had a look at Piranesi, the etchings of Brangwyn and Muirhead Bone and the rich Edwardian baroque of provincial halls”. A year after Queen Mary opened the rebuilt station in 1922, the L&SWR was absorbed into the new Southern Railway.

Jon Wright & Joanna Moore