"Bomb Sight" website

My office window overlooks an open-air car park in Hackney, situated in the cellar of a demolished building. Years ago someone told me this was the site of a bombed-out building, and the new web-site confirms it – it’s listed as Kiffen Street, located between Clere Street and Leonard Street in EC2A. All that’s been done to convert it to a car park is to tarmac over the floor and build two ramps down into the lower level. The side walls have been left untouched and the smashed brickwork and concrete of the old building (probably a warehouse) are still visible.

I remember coming into London with my parents in the sixties and seeing huge piles of rubble behind wooden fencing; it only sunk in years afterwards that many of these were WWII bomb-sites that still had to be cleared for rebuilding.

Bomb Sight

According to its website it allegedly states it mapped where every bomb fell in London during the blitz. I was a schoolboy living in West London at the time of the blitz and knew were all the bombs landed in our neighbourhood, On investigation I found a number of places where HE bombs landed missing
from this website. One about a hundred yards down my road a bomb demolished several houses another in the next turning that backed onto our house also one couple of streets away, the bomb landed in the road and part of the paving stone came through our roof and landed on the kitchen as luck we were in our anderson shelter at the time. There are a number of other place where bombs fell that have not been recorded on the map this includes Fulham Football Club at Craven Cottage one dropped in the main stand and another on the pitch. On other occasions groups of fire bombs landed in the area, there was also a mine on a parachute that landed it did not explode as the chute got caught up on something as it came down and landed on its side luckly it did not roll over on to the side where the plunger was. The bomb squad removed it the following day.

😮 … It’s certainly put this into a new perspective for me at least …

Don,t forget this map only covers 1940-41. I would think it would almost double if the rest of the war was included.

I’m still not clear as to whether the marked spots are where bombs fell, or
just those which exploded.
Of course there are many sites in and around London, where they know that
UXBs still lie in the ground.

http://bombsight.org

Truly incredible, it does make me wonder how London ever rebuilt after all this!
I find it hard to comprehend the damage those Londoners must have woken up to on a daily basis. Is there even a square patch of land around Embankment that wasn’t hit?

Certainly gives a new perspective on this famous image

From the map I see two bombs fell down my road, as a Londoner I find this hugely insightful and I now have huge respect for all blitz survivors.

God forbid it ever occurs again.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016667/Colour-pictures-revealed-London-blitz-Nazi-bombers-World-War-II.html

Thanks Alan

Surely with a Bomb Sight you need to look down 🙂

Silly me, I searched under “Bomb Sight”… nothing came up 🙂

I did in Historic….