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30,000 Ceramic Red Poppies Flow Across the Tower of London’s Lawn

By Jessica Stewart on May 7, 2025

View of the 2014 public art installation, “Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red” at the Tower of London (Photo: RubinowaDama/Depositphotos)

To commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, 30,000 ceramic poppies have returned to the Tower of London. Originally part of the 2014 Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red public art installation, they will remain on view until November 11, Armistice Day.

Ceramic artist Paul Cummins created 888,246 red ceramic poppies for the 2014 installation, one for every British or Colonial service person killed during the First World War. While that installation was commissioned for the centenary of World War I's outbreak, this time, the poppies signify the end of another difficult time in history.

Tom Piper, the stage designer who created the original conceptual design, has devised a new display for The Tower Remembers. Designed to look like a wound at the heart of the Tower, poppies spill across the lawn in front of the historic White Tower. There, they flow up to form a crater, perhaps a nod to the Tower's bombing during the Blitz.

On loan from the Imperial War Museum, these ceramic poppies call us to remember and reflect on collective sacrifice. The VE Day installation opened on May 6 with a visit from Queen Camilla, who placed the installation's final poppy. Also present were two D-Day veterans, Henry Rice, 99, a former Royal Navy signalman, and Richard Aldred, a tank driver in the Inniskilling Dragoon Guards.

“Each one of those poppies represents a man that gave his life to allow me, my family, this country, in fact, to live in peace and comfort,” Rice shared.

The Tower Remembers is on view at the Tower of London through November 11, 2025.