Cross of Sacrifice

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A tall memorial cross with inscribed plinth dating from c.1927 to designs by Sir Reginald Blomfield and constructed by Messrs Haslett of Abercorn Road, Derry. The cross commemorates the dead of WWI and is located in the Belfast City cemetery.

Tall cross of grey Carlow limestone facing E, with a sword engraved to the centre of its principal elevation. The cross has an octagonal plan form and is slightly tapered with a stepped base and sits upon a four stage stepped octagonal limestone plinth. The deep top step of the plinth bears the engraved inscription: ‘This cross of sacrifice is one in design and intention with those which have been set up in France and Belgium and other places throughout the world where our dead of the Great war are laid to rest’; a second inscription is engraved to the step below: ‘Their name liveth for evermore’.

Setting:
The Cross of Sacrifice is erected at a prominent location to the centre of Belfast City cemetery and is one of a number of listed memorials of the Cemetery along with the Vaults (HB26.25.001 D), Herdman memorial (HB26.25.001 E), Inglis memorial (HB26.25.001 F), Carson memorial (HB26.25.001 H), Phillips memorial (HB26.25.001 I), Fennel-Stelfox memorial (HB26.25.001 J) and Lynn memorial (HB26.25.001 K).

Historical information

In the course of the nineteenth century Belfast expanded at a phenomenal rate. As Belfast’s population rose, there was increasing pressure on its existing burial grounds, exacerbated by outbreaks of cholera and the Great Famine. Both Shankill graveyard and Friar’s Bush graveyard were becoming overcrowded, while the New Burying Ground, Clifton Street, was also filling up. The opening of a new Presbyterian cemetery at Balmoral only partly alleviated the situation.

Responding to this situation, in the autumn of 1865 Belfast Corporation decided to accept Thomas Sinclair’s offer of 101 acres on the Falls Road for a municipal cemetery. The purchase of the site was completed in December of that year for £12,000 with an annual ground rent of £73 5s. 4d. Of this site, 45 acres would be used as a cemetery, with most of the remainder being given over to what would become Falls Park. On 25 January 1867 the Cemetery Committee of Belfast Corporation awarded the contract to design the new cemetery to William Gay of Bradford. ‘The Belfast Cemetery’, as the name had been agreed on 29 September 1868, opened on 1 August 1869, with the first burials taking place there three days later.

According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Belfast City Cemetery contains 296 Commonwealth burials of the First World War. It also includes a ‘War Cross’ or ‘Cross of Sacrifice’.

On 24 November 1926 the Assistant Surveyor of Belfast Corporation reported to the Parks and Playgrounds Committee (of which the Cemeteries Committee was a sub-committee) that two officials from the Imperial War Graves Commission had recently visited Belfast City Cemetery and provisionally selected a site for a memorial to the dead of the First World War.

On 24 January 1927 H. F. Robinson wrote to Belfast Corporation outlining a series of proposals for commemorating the war dead. After highlighting plans for individual headstones and the War Graves Plot, he went on to write: ‘It is also proposed to construct a War Cross on a permanent site in the Cemetery to form a central memorial of remembrance, and a suitable site for this was suggested to me on the occasion of my visit to the Cemetery.’ He enclosed a drawing showing the design and dimensions of the cross and the treatment of the site.

The Cemeteries Sub-Committee inspected the site on 9 March and resolved to accept the plans submitted by the Imperial War Graves Commission. The location for the cross would be ‘C3 Island site’ – at the back of the original City Cemetery. On 1 April 1927 the matter came before the full Belfast Corporation which approved the construction of the cross. The cross was built by Messrs Haslett Bros of Abercorn Road, Derry, and was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield. It was made of Carlow limestone and rises from an octagonal base.

Blomfield was one of the leading architects of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. The War Cross that he designed for the Imperial War Graves Commission can be found in cemeteries with over 40 war graves. The cross features a carving of a broadsword with the blade pointing downwards. Blomfield deliberately chose this design, as he himself put it, ‘to keep clear of any of the sentimentalities of Gothic’. The cross is marked as ‘War Memorial’ on the 1920-39 Ordnance Survey map.

References

Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
Minutes of the Parks and Playgrounds Committee (including the Cemeteries Sub-Committee), 1926-32 – LA/7/11/AA/3
Ordnance Survey 6-inch map, 1920-39 – OS/6/1/60/4

Published sources
Tom Hartley, Written in Stone: The History of Belfast City Cemetery (Belfast, 2006)

Online sources
Commonwealth War Graves Commission website: www.cwgc.org

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
U. Historic Associations
V. Authorship
W. Northern Ireland/International Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

A tall and imposing memorial cross dating c.1927 to designs by Sir Reginald Blomfield and constructed by Messrs Haslett of Abercorn Road, Derry. The cross commemorates the dead of WWI and is prominently located on a main axis route in the Belfast City Cemetery.
The cemetery has a number of listed records including the walling (HB26.25.001A), the Superintendent’s House (HB26.25.001B), the Fountains (HB26.25.001C), the Vaults (HB26.25.001D), Herdman memorial (HB26.25.001 E), Inglis memorial (HB26.25.001 F), Carson memorial (HB26.25.001 H), Phillips memorial (HB26.25.001 I), Fennel-Stelfox memorial (HB26.25.001 J) and Lynn memorial (HB26.25.001 K). The war memorial, erected between 1927 and 1931 and commissioned by the Imperial War Graves Commission, contributes to the overall setting within the cemetery. A Cross of Sacrifice was also commissioned in Dundonald Cemetery(HB26.13.050).