In her 1966 Christmas address to the nation, the late Queen Elizabeth II encouraged her countrymen to “breath gentleness and care into the harsh progress of mankind.”
At the heart of the city of London, so often the historical setting for that progress, those words are reflected in the proposed designs for a memorial to honor the departed monarch.
Submitted by five of the UK’s most renowned design studios and architecture firms, the eventual winner will be revealed in 2026 to mark what would have been the Queen’s 100th Birthday.
Organized by the Queen Elizabeth Memorial Committee, the chief aim is to design “an emotionally powerful place” in St. James’ Park that celebrates Elizabeth II’s “extraordinary life.”
One entry features a giant cast-bronze tree; another, a series of Lily pad platforms across the water, while a third consists of two intertwining bridges. A fourth looks to the nation’s past with an equestrian statue set along a tree-lined avenue, and a fifth focuses on her place at the “bedrock of the nation” by connecting a series of glades with a bridge made of literal bedrock.
But the themes are clear—bringing people together, bridging nations and divides, a love of nature.
CNN reports that landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith has proposed to digitally render a centuries-old oak found in Windsor Great Park, once the private hunting grounds of Windsor Castle that the Queen gradually turned into a public park, and cast it in bronze.
Set on a pedestal on the water, it would be visible from a curved bridge made of stones taken from all over the UK.
The centerpiece of the proposal from landscape architecture studio J&L Gibbons is a solitary stone bridge made of bedrock connecting a series of glades for “forest bathing” in the heart of London.
Also featuring bridges is the submission from WilkinsonEyre, wherein two bridges co-mingle as they span the water in St. James’ Park Lake, together representing the threads of Elizabeth II’s life. Seven different positions would feature invitations to visitors to contemplate themes of their lives and those of the Queen’s, namely family, nature and the Commonwealth.
The upper bridge would allow visitors to see some of the London skyline as well as Buckingham Palace, whilst the lower one would place them closer to the water, crowded with ducks and birds as it often is.
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Heatherwick Studio proposed an ambitious entry it described as “quietly monumental” like the Queen’s life—with a lily-themed bridge at its heart and featuring a lily-themed canopy.
The Queen looks gently out at the water from an equestrian memorial statue in the center of the bridge under the canopies, is surrounded by plants she loved, and 70 limestone Lily pads to represent her 70-year reign.
All photos released by Malcolm Reading Consultants.
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