Final designs revealed for Queen Elizabeth memorial

A final shortlist of five proposed designs for the national memorial to Queen Elizabeth II has been revealed by the government.

The memorial, commemorating the life of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch who died in September 2022, will be built in St James’s Park in central London.

Illustrations of the design concepts are being put online by the Cabinet Office and the public will be invited to have their say about the ideas for the major new monument.

Three of the five proposed designs feature the late Queen riding a horse, reflecting her lifelong enthusiasm for equestrianism.

There are other features proposed by the competing teams of artists and architects, such as incorporating recordings of the late Queen’s voice into a memorial, and large sculptures of lilies around a figure of the late Queen.

One of the proposed designs uses an oak tree to represent Queen Elizabeth’s strength and resilience. Another suggests building symbolic pathways and a pair of bridges over the lake in the park.

The winning entry will be chosen later this year, but there is no date yet set for when the finished memorial will be unveiled. The construction budget will be between £23m and £46m, depending on the selected design, says the Cabinet Office.

The public will get a chance to say whether they want a more traditional representation of the late Queen, or something more experimental, in what will become an important London landmark.

The new memorial will be placed not too far from statues of the late Queen’s parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

Also nearby is the memorial to Queen Victoria outside Buckingham Palace.

The location for the monument will be a section of St James’s Park close to the Mall and across to a bridge over a lake in the park. The entries include plans to landscape and redesign this area and the construction process is expected to mean replacing the current bridge.

The memorial scheme will also provide community projects and facilities around the country.

This will follow in the tradition of legacy schemes such as the King George V Playing Fields, which saw almost 500 sports grounds opened in memory of the monarch who died in 1936.

Many of those playing fields are still in use, dotted around the country.

The public is being encouraged to contribute ideas about the memorial and to give feedback on the shortlisted designs.

“We want public engagement, we want the public to comment on these proposals, because we want them to feel part of it,” said Baroness Amos, a member of the committee which will select the design to be built.

“So much of what the late Queen was about was meeting people and engaging with them,” she said.

Baroness Amos, a former leader of the House of Lords, said the memorial should be a fitting tribute to the late Queen, who died at the age of 96 after seven decades on the throne.

“This is about an extraordinary woman and an extraordinary reign, about her commitment to public service, her duty, her commitment to the community, to the nation and the Commonwealth,” she said.