The Royal Memorial Chapel Sandhurst
Some of the memorials in the Chapel are occasionally hidden beneath carpeting since they are carved into the beautiful black marble flooring which is soft and easily damaged.
One of these is of special interest since it commemorates the dead of those trained at the US Military Academy at West Point. Below is the current badge of that academy but our memorial shows the Roman helmet facing in the opposite direction. This is not a mistake by the artist but portrays a superseded version which was in use at the time it was carved. If you have a West Point trained guest, ask them if they notice anything about our memorial and then tell them the story!
The memorial is on the steps behind the glass cabinet of the World War II Book of Remembrance
One of these is of special interest since it commemorates the dead of those trained at the US Military Academy at West Point. Below is the current badge of that academy but our memorial shows the Roman helmet facing in the opposite direction. This is not a mistake by the artist but portrays a superseded version which was in use at the time it was carved. If you have a West Point trained guest, ask them if they notice anything about our memorial and then tell them the story!
The memorial is on the steps behind the glass cabinet of the World War II Book of Remembrance
Click on the badge to visit the West Point website
The dedication of the Chapel on 2nd May 1937, on completion of the final phase of the building programme that transformed the original College Chapel (see the history of the organ for an internal view ) into the building we know today.
(click on the photo to see an enlargement on which it is possible to identify Queen Mary, King George VI, and Queen Elizabeth (the late Queen Mother)
(click on the photo to see an enlargement on which it is possible to identify Queen Mary, King George VI, and Queen Elizabeth (the late Queen Mother)
The building as it stands today is actually a hybrid of two others. The original chapel was designed in 1879 by the Royal Engineers in a style copied from a church in Florence. It is constructed mainly in red brick, with terracotta moulding, large interlocking pediment copies and massive corbels. After the Great War, it was enlarged by architect, Captain Arthur C. Martin, who designed the new building in a Byzantine style, changing the orientation of the chapel from South East to North East.
