Memorial to the Women of WWII

The lowdown

Standing on Whitehall close to the Cenotaph is a tall bronze monument unlike any other, its sides hung with seventeen sets of clothing, a nurse's cape, a welder's mask, a police uniform, an evening coat, all empty. They represent the hundreds of different jobs that women took on during the Second World War, stepping into the work men left behind.

The empty uniforms, hung as if on pegs at the end of a shift, are deliberately faceless, standing for the millions of unnamed women who kept the country running. Unveiled in 2005, it is free, often passed without a second glance, and quietly one of the most powerful memorials in London.