The Wills Memorial Building (also known as the Wills Memorial Tower or simply the Wills Tower) is a Neo Gothic building designed by Sir George Oatley and built as a memorial to Henry Overton Wills III. Begun in 1915 and not opened until 1925, it is considered one of the last great Gothic buildings to be built in England.
Situated near the top of Park Street on Queens Road in Bristol, United Kingdom, it is a landmark building of the University of Bristol that currently houses the School of Law and the Department of Earth Sciences, as well as the Law and Earth Sciences libraries. It is the third highest structure in Bristol, standing at 68 m (215 ft).
Many regard the building as synonymous with the University of Bristol. It is the centrepiece building of the university precinct and used by the University of Bristol for degree ceremonies which take place inside of the Great Hall.
Architecture commentator Nikolaus Pevsner described it as:
- "a tour de force in Gothic Revival, so convinced, so vast, and so competent that one cannot help feeling respect for it."
It has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II* listed building and serves as a regional European Documentation Centre.
Read more about Wills Memorial Building: History, Architecture, Restoration Work
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—Julian Mitchell (20th century)
“I hope there will be no effort to put up a shaft or any monument of that sort in memory of me or of the other women who have given themselves to our work. The best kind of a memorial would be a school where girls could be taught everything useful that would help them to earn an honorable livelihood; where they could learn to do anything they were capable of, just as boys can. I would like to have lived to see such a school as that in every great city of the United States.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)