Virtual tour

The entrance

At the extreme northern end, visible from both approaches, high on the central buttress of the shrine a beautiful relief by Alice Meredith Williams of the Calling of St Andrew announces the theme of duty, the duty both to serve and to remember. In niches around the four walls are figures of the Virtues, Justice and Courage by Alexander Carrick which adorn the wings at either end of the south façade on Crown Square.

	At ground level, the doorway is flanked by the Lion and the Unicorn, the heraldic beasts of England and Scotland, carved by Phillis Bone, a young sculptor who had recently graduated from Edinburgh College of Art, and one of a number of women artists whom Robert Lorimer encouraged and who played a prominent part in the execution of the War Memorial.

	Above the doorway, in a deep niche, a tall figure carved in stone by Percy Portsmouth, represents the survival of the spirit, the theme of the whole memorial; the spirit of those who have died survives in those who commemorate them and is expressed in the act of commemoration itself.

Virtual guided tour
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