Probably the best-known cenotaph in the modern world is the one that stands in Whitehall, London. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, who conceived the idea from the name of a structure in Gertrude Jekyll's garden, and constructed from Portland stone between 1919 and 1920 by Holland, Hannen & Cubitts. It replaced Lutyen's identical wood-and-plaster cenotaph erected in 1919 for the Allied Victory Parade commissioned by David Lloyd George, and is a Grade I listed building. It is undecorated save for a carved wreath on each end and the words "The Glorious Dead", chosen by Rudyard Kipling. The sides of the Cenotaph are not parallel, but if extended would meet at a point some above the ground. Similarly, the "horizontal" surfaces are in fact sections of a sphere whose centre would be below ground. http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Cenotaph
