THREAD/Morning all, in London at least, its a pretty ropey one, so we’re going to continue our comparisons from “Hitler Passed This Way” and this week, we’re staying on my side of Thames and will start outside Southwark Tube Station, a relatively recent addition dating from 1999

when the Jubilee Line extension to North Greenwich and Stratford was opened. The station was built on a bombsite and the immediate area shows evidence of wartime bombing, most notably beneath the railway bridge on Blackfriars Road which is pockmarked with splinter scars, mostly

from the night of 25 October 1940. Five trams had stopped beneath or close to the bridge and the majority of the passengers had taken the crews’ advice and gone with them to a public shelter until the worst of the raid had passed. However, some decided to stay put, perhaps

thinking that the substantial bridge would offer better shelter. At 21:23 a bomb pierced the bridge and detonated on one of the trams, destroying it and another completely, whilst three others were seriously damaged. Around 50 people were killed or seriously injured here and we

can see comparison views from then and now in the following two photos. Also seriously damaged on this night was The Ring, which stood where the Palestra, a modern office building used by TfL now stands. The Ring dated from 1783 and was built as The Surrey Chapel by the

Rev. Rowland Hill, a real “fire and brimstone” preacher who had the building built in a vaguely circular shape so that there were no corners in which the Devil could lurk! In 1910 it became a boxing and wrestling venue run by a former boxer of some repute, Dick Burge.

Dick had previously fallen into bad ways and had served 8 years of a 10 year prison sentence for cheque forgery and other bank fraud. However, he had intervened ina prison riot to save a guard from a mob in the riot and had been released two years early. He vowed to return to a

law abiding life and took on The Ring with the help of his redoubtable wife Bella, who had stood by him through thick and thin. They transformed the derelict chapel with help of the local homeless, who they repaid by running a soup kitchen at the venue during the daylight hours

when there was no boxing. During the Great War, Dick enlisted into the Surrey Rifles but sadly died of influenza in 1918, just two months before the end of the war. Bella continued to run The Ring. The spectators were a typical London crowd, who shouted their disapproval of

fighters or referee in “colourful” English but threw showers of “browns” (pennies) for those who fought well. The Duke of Windsor, when Prince of Wales visited on at least one occasion in 1928. The Ring was damaged in the same raid in October 1940

and almost completely destroyed in April 1941. Incidentally, “Palestra” which is the name of the building currently on the site is the Ancient Greek word for a wrestling venue. From here, it is a short walk to the Elephant & Castle and here we can compare views in

in Newington Causeway of the former Isaac Walton tailor & hosiery store which once stood here, as well as the Rockingham Arms pub which stood on the corner. The shop was destroyed on the night of 10/11 May 1941, when this whole area was grievously damaged but the pub managed to

survive, only to be demolished when the area was redeveloped in the 1960s, the original pub was finally demolished but the name lives on with the current Wetherspoon’s pub taking the same name and occupying part of the same site. Our next port of call is Holy Trinity Church

at Dockhead, Bermondsey, close to where Tooley Street becomes Jamaica Road. On the night of 2 March 1945 a V-2 rocket struck the priests’ house killing Fathers O’Riordan, Spillane and McCarthy instantly. The housekeeper, Mrs Slavin and Father Arbuthnot were missing, presumed

buried beneath the ruins. Ted Heming of the Bermondsey Heavy Rescue, a milkman in civilian life volunteered to go into the ruins and managed to extract Mrs Slavin and eventually, Father Arbuthnot too, badly injured but still alive. He eventually made a full recovery and the two

men would become lifelong friends. For his bravery, Ted Heming was awarded a George Cross. The original church dated from 1835 but was rebuilt post-war to the design of HS Goodhart-Rendel. We now venture further along Jamaica Road and pause just beyond where the present day

Bermondsey Tube Station is now located. In the following photographs, we see how the opposite side of the road from nos. 123 – 169 once looked, a smart row of terraced houses. These houses were damaged on the night of 10/11 May 1941, when amazingly only one person was killed.

Early on 16 June 1944, the area was devastated by a V-1 buzz bomb, one of the very earliest to reach London. The next photo shows the area post-war after the ruins had been cleared away and to give you some idea as to where we are today, the road being crossed by the 3 ladies

is Martin Crescent, a road that no longer exists today but the tracks of which can still be followed by the pedestrian walkway, the entrance to which can be seen just by the black noticeboard to the left of the traffic lights. Our next port of call is in Dulwich, a bit too far to

walk from here but easily reached by train from London Bridge. We pause in Gallery Road, opposite the Dulwich Picture Gallery which was seriously damaged by a V-1 flying bomb in the early hours of 21 July 1944. Although the bomb fell in the road, the blast demolished the

Verger’s Cottage and this was where the only two
casualties, the Verger of Old Dulwich College Mrs Douglas and her daughter were located. Happily, they survived although they were sufficiently injured to require hospital treatment. It is difficult to repeat the exact view due to

the tall trees that now partially obscure the view. The street view photo however, does show the repaired brickwork in the Picture Gallery that can still clearly be seen today. From here, it is a pleasant walk to Lordship Lane, where we can pause opposite the Co-op at nos.

111-115. The building that once stood here was also a Co-op and on Saturday 5 August 1944, at 16:45 a V-1 flying bomb impacted on the Co-op at the corner of Northcross Road and Lordship Lane, devastating the store and the surrounding area. This was very serious incident with 23

people killed; the Co-op and six other shops in Lordship Lane were destroyed and many other houses in the surrounding area were seriously damaged, including forty in Shawcross Road. The pre-war and 1945 photos were taken from one of the properties in Lordship Lane but from ground

level it is almost impossible to reproduce the same view, due to the tall trees and also the modern street clutter and traffic but the turning we see on the right is Shawcross Road, the same road that the lady is about to cross in the 1945 view. Happily, the Lord Palmerston pub

which can be seen in both black and white photos still survives, although it is obscured in the modern photo. For our final visit today, we are going to jump a few miles to Bromley and the parish church of St Peter & St Paul in Church Road.

This was the burial place of Dr Johnson’s wife in 1753 but on the night of 16/17 April 1941, it received a direct hit from a 250 kg bomb, which left only the tower standing. Sadly Hazel Kissick, an 18-year-old pupil of Bromley County Girls’ School was killed in the church whilst

she was performing fire watching duties. This was one of the many nights when AFS crews were drafted in from outside London, including a crew from Ilford who made the long
trek across the Thames to find themselves at Bromley. After dealing with the incident at the church, they

found a WVS refreshment van, crewed by five ladies “not one of whom was under eighty years of age.” All they had left was boiled rice, as all the tea, coffee and sandwiches had been taken by other emergency workers. One of the firemen, Tom Stothard said

“I thought it was grand, it was hot + filled the great void in my stomach most agreeably….Those old ladies were determined to do their bit and had worked very hard, I’m sure but really shouldn’t have been out on a night like that, although I wouldn’t have cared to tell them so!”

The church was rebuilt between 1949-57 and continues to serve as the parish church for the area. That brings us to the end of this week’s virtual tour of southeast London. Next week, we’ll head back to central London and look at some incidents in the City and West End./END