There aren't a great many sites of memory left to evoke the first bombing war, so during my recent UK trip I thought I'd make the effort to track a couple of them down. (One, Cleopatra's Needle, I did see on my first UK trip, but have never managed to make it back.)
The first is a very sad place, yet a peaceful one, as is often the way with war memorials. It commemorates the 18 small children killed on 13 June 1917 when a Gotha dropped a bomb on the Upper North Street Primary School in Poplar. It's the incident which opens Home Fires Burning's introduction, and will certainly reappear in my 1917 chapter.
£1455 was raised by public subscription for the memorial, which was dedicated on 23 June 1919 by Major-General E.B. 'Splash' Ashmore, who at the time of the bombing had been commander of the London Aerial Defence Area; an interestingly martial choice. The memorial is now Grade II* listed, so should be preserved for a long time yet.
The second remnant I went to see was 59-61 Farringdon Road, AKA the Zeppelin Building. (It actually has featured on this blog before, but with donated photos.)
Well, that explains the name, then! The Survey of London specifies that it was No. 61 which was destroyed, and that it was rebuilt 'in replica or behind the original façade'.
Naturally, while doing the bare minimum of googling for this post I found that there are a small handful of markers, plaques and other memorials of the First World War raids that I had no idea about, including one in Queen Square I must have walked past, if not actually over, a half-dozen times. Well, obviously I'll have to go back…
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Nick Beale
I came across the Farringdon plaque on my way to a work meeting in London once. It wasn't called Zeppelin House then, though.
Also seen while at an exhibition, a small plaque in one of the galleries at the Royal Academy of Arts saying that it was damaged by bombing on 24 September 1917: https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/gallery-ix-burlington-house-after-the-explosion-of-a-german-bomb-in-1917
Also, I've frequently passed by the Odhams Walk flats in Long Acre, Covent Garden. These are on the site of the Odhams Print Works where 38 were killed and 25 injured on 28/29 January 1918. I'm not sure if there is any kind of memorial there, though: https://www.iancastlezeppelin.co.uk/28/29-jan-1918
Brett Holman
Post authorThanks for this, Nick! I've just remembered that Thomas Fegan's The ‘Baby Killers’ (2002) has a gazetteer of bombed sites, which I should bring along with me when I go to London one time... Of Odhams, it suggest there is no plaque or other memorial, apart from Odhams Walk itself.