To commemorate the 2,236 men of the NER who died during the 1914-18 war, the company commissioned the eminent Sir Edwin Lutyens, who had built the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London. Work began in 1923 and to overcome aesthetic concerns by the Council a full-scale mock-up of the memorial was first constructed in wood. The memorial occupies the site of the original York station coal depot and carriage sidings.