Good Morning and welcome to another lockdown Saturday in London, so why not explore some more of London’s wartime past, comparing pages from “Hitler Passed This Way” with views from today. For these latter shots, there are some of my photos but as we have to stay local, I am

having to rely on Google Streetview images rather more than I would prefer to. As before, we have covered some of these sites on our virtual walks, although there are some new ones to visit as well. We start in High Holborn, opposite a narrow passageway known as Great Turnstile.

Today, all we can see is the usual “identikit” modern glass and steel office block and retail units beneath but in 1940, once stood a similar narrow road and passageway to Great Turnstile named Featherstone Buildings. This fell victim to the Luftwaffe's bombs

on three separate raids, finally succumbing on the night of 16/17 April 1941. We next head eastwards along High Holborn to pause at Holborn Circus, where on our left at the junction of Charterhouse Street once stood the premises of Messrs Negretti & Zambra, once makers of high

quality optical and photographical instruments, as well as barometers + weather recording equipment. They were also famed as being “clerks of the weather” having a weather station on the roof of the premises and posted a daily forecast, originally for the use of their customers

but later taken up by Lloyd’s of London and the Baltic Exchange, such was its reliability. Sadly, the premises were hit on 12 Sept.1940 and once again on 29 October 1940, which completely destroyed the already damaged building. To compound matters, their factory in Portsmouth was

also hit in the Blitz but the company was somehow able to carry on and post-war, re-established their HQ in Regent Street, from where they continued trading until 1999. We’ll continue along Charterhouse Street until we reach the junction with Farringdon Street, where we can pause

to compare the view today, with that of pre-war and also from 1945, when damage from a notorious V-2 incident of 8 March 1945 was still very much in evidence. The missile struck during shopping hours. Sadly, 110 people were killed here, many of them women and children, as well as

further 123 who were suffered serious injuries plus almost 250 walking wounded. Nearby Bart’s Hospital dealt with most of the casualties but they were in danger of being overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of wounded, some of whom were sent instead to UCH, the Royal Free

and Great Ormond Street. As it was, Bart’s had four surgical teams working flat out for 24 hours to deal with the backlog of casualties. From this once melancholy scene, we head south down Farringdon Street to cross Ludgate Circus into New Bridge Street, where we

turn right in to Bridewell Place. Where the road here veers sharply left, there once stood the London City Mission, as we can see in the pre-war image but this was largely destroyed on the night of 29 December 1940 in the great fire raid on the Square Mile

that became known as the “Second Great Fire of London”. From here, we can cross New Bridge Street and take a cut through Apothecary Street, Blackfriars Lane, Carter Lane and Dean’s Court to emerge in St. Paul’s Churchyard, opposite the cathedral. The whole area through which we

have just walked was devastated, most notably on the night of the 29 December and the accompanying photo not taken from the book shows us the extent of the damage around the cathedral that remained a wasteland for years after the war. Indeed, when I worked in the construction

industry in the 1980s/90s, my then employers were involved in building on one of the final remaining bomb sites in Ludgate Hill as part of the development there. We’ve covered St Paul’s Cathedral on our virtual walks, so will pass on this site today and instead walk around the

front of the cathedral in to Paternoster Square, once the centre of London’s book publishing industry, which literally went up in smoke on the night of the Second Great Fire. In the 1960s, a frankly awful development was built here, which thankfully was demolished and replaced in

the 1990s by something much more in keeping with the surroundings. We pause at the western end of Paternoster Row, which took its name in the 13th Century from the Paternostrers, who made prayer beads for the worshippers at St Paul’s and who carried on their trade here. Mercers

offices and stores here. The area was torched on the night of 29 December 1940 when it was estimated that some 3,000,000 books were burned-something which would have pleased Hitler greatly no doubt. The modern development, although lacking in shops selling prayer beads, still

captures something of the feel of the old street in so far as it maintains the narrowness of it. We’ll now do a circuit of the cathedral and pick out some of the splinter damage to Wren’s masterpiece that still can be seen. We emerge back in St Paul’s Churchyard and can pause by

Festival Gardens, at the junction with New Change, where we see a small blue plaque which reminds us that this was once the site of the Cordwainers’ Hall, one of the many livery halls located within the Square Mile. Cordwainers are manufacturers of shoes in fine leather and their

original hall on this site was built in 1557, only to be destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. The building destroyed here on the 29 December was the sixth and dated from as recently as 1909-10. Most of the company’s silver was stored for safe keeping and thus survived but many

fine paintings and wood carvings were lost in the inferno. The loss of the hall opened up some fine views of St Paul’s and the gardens here are a fine amenity for city workers in normal times. If we continue along one junction, we see on our right Friday Street, which once ran

north to south from Cheapside to Queen Victoria Street. Today, only this short stub remains, surrounded by post-war developments. The name Friday Street is thought to come from the numbers of fishmongers who once lived here, within easy reach of Billingsgate Market and who served

the Friday fish market. In the modern view we see the road today, looking south towards Queen Victoria Street. We have already examined the fate of the Salvation Army HQ in Queen Victoria Street in a previous “virtual” walk, so instead from here, we continue east along Cannon St

and turn left into Walbrook. We have covered Cannon Street Station on our previous virtual walk, so will ignore this today and concentrate instead on the church of St Stephen Wallbrook, another of Wren’s gems, constructed between 1672-79 to replace an earlier church destroyed in

the Great Fire of 1666. Walbrook takes its name from one of Londons lost rivers, the Walbrook that roughly follows the course of the road and emerges into the Thames just upstream of Cannon Street Station, The church is well known for it being the founding place of the Samaritans

charity, set up in 1953 by the then rector Dr Chad Varah. The pre-war photo shows Stoneham’s bookshop which once stood on the east side and which was destroyed in the raid which damaged the church on 10/11 May 1941. From here, we now cut north via King William Street, Moorgate +

London Wall to find ourselves in Fore Street, known for reputedly being the site of the first bomb on the City of London on the night of 24/25 August 1940. This street is right on the edge of the Barbican Development and because of this, it is now that “then and now” comparisons

become difficult, if not impossible due to the fact that the damage was so great here that the street geography has changed considerably. Much of the affected area is now completely submerged beneath the development but on our right once stood a massive textile warehouse which

had originally been founded here in 1799. It was a victim of the fires of 29 December 1940, when firemen had to watch almost powerless due to lack of water whilst the building went up in flames. The comparison today is difficult to make, but we are roughly on the spot with the

warehouse site being on our right, which we work out due to the relative position of St Giles-without-Cripplegate, which can be seen in the near distance in both old and new photos. This church, built in 1392, partly rebuilt after a fire in 1545 but untouched by the Great Fire of

1666 now stands in the centre of the Barbican estate, although I have not been able to visit recently to take a decent image of it. Instead, we can show you before and after images from the book, which serve to show the splendid isolation in which the church found itself after

the events of 29 December 1940. The church itself was gravely damaged by the bombs but the fire itself, was stopped at the vestry door, saving the church from probable total destruction. From here, we can continue through the estate and emerge into Aldersgate Street to turn right

and pause at the junction with Long Lane, which will be our final port of call for today. As we look into Long Lane, the scene we see today is totally different from that of pre-war, when on this site once stood the Manchester Hotel, used by juries sitting in trials at the

Old Bailey who were required to deliberate overnight in murder trials and the like. Gutted by fires on the 29 December 1940, we can see that only the shell remained standing in the midst of greater destruction all around and it was subsequently demolished when the area was

subjected to the great upheaval of the Barbican development post-war. This concludes our tour for today but join us again next Saturday, when we shall venture west./END