In 1903 a public appeal paid for minor maintenance of the Memorial, and in 1949 further repairs were undertaken following an appeal by St. Mary Mags. These repairs were not all good and the use of cement to the pinnacle finials and the statues, and a cement-based mortar elsewhere that parted from the parent stone was something that the OPT restorations had to grapple with.

As early as 1960s the City Engineer observed the inadequacies of the earlier repairs and erected a temporary fence and removed loose stones. There is no record of any detailed survey and repairs seem to have been minimal, so that by 1990s when John Ashdown, the City Conservation Officer looked at it words like vegetation, loose stones and sand left from earlier water/sand blast cleaning tell their own story. It was the conservation architect Donald Insall Associates who produced a report recommending extensive repairs, conservation of the statues, and reconstructing the perimeter steps and paving.