Forum Topic

Hammersmith and Shepherds Bush during the Blitz

Just wondering if there were areas in Hammersmith and Shepherds Bush that were hit during the blitz?

Carol Burge ● 5345d11 Comments

Yes Jim, have lived in Harewood Road, Isleworth for some 45 years.I often return to Hammersmith and relive my memories which are still so vivid. During one Air Raid my father was on leave from the R.A.F.and the chimney in our kitchen/scullery caught on fire, someone told my father to put salt down the chimney and I remember him vividly, up on the roof in the middle of a raid when really he should have been putting the salt on the source of the fire. I still have recurring dreams of this, although not so frequent as I have aged.I think the under table shelter you speak of was called a Morrison shelter. We had one at John Betts school in one of the southerley classrooms, their was also a large brick shelter in the playground on the the boundary of the houses in Ravenscourt road.What I think the younger generation of today would find hard to believe, is the commarderie that existed and the willingness for people to share their smallest of rations to help a neighbour particularly where their were children.I really must put all this down on paper, as I am now 75 and not in good health.I could go on for hours!!!!!!!!!!Ron.

Ron Curant ● 5198d

Wow Ron, that was interesting..and great that your memories have been recorded here for all to see.Yes the early months of 1944 were tough with the arrival of the V1s (the doddlebug)(with the red light for all to see..worryingly!.before the engine cut out).Then in Setember 1944 was the arrival of the first V2 rockets...which landed just 1/2 mile from where I was under the table!It seems that the Civil Defence organisations kept log books of where all the bombs etc landed,,street by street etc. Chiswick Library has a beautiful blue covered book listing in neat handwriting some 600 incidents. Maybe there is a similar book at Hammersmith Library so that everyone can check their street etc. Yes prefabs appeared on sites that had been demolished. Sometimes prisoner of war camps were established on bomb sites ...like the one for Italians in Magnolia Road Chiswick.Thanks to Carol for keeping the thread and Forum alive and well. We haven't had a Hammersmith Quiz for some time! (see Forum Search)You must be very local to me Ron (Isleworth/ Osterley)

Jim Lawes ● 5198d

Dear Carol,The Prefab day Nursery was erected on Dalling road between Attwood road(then Church Rd) and Raynham Road. The Prefab houses were on Dalling Road between Raynham and Redmore Road. Prefab houses also replaced bombed houses on Attwood Road opposite the end of Perrers Road and the Alexadra Pub now flats I gather, where the new houses now stand. Also a prefab house was put on the southern corner of Bradmore Park Road opposite the shops and immediately next to the shops the bombed houses where replaced by a static water tank as a reserve for fire Services. A large bomb was also dropped in the roadway at the NW corner of Bradmore Park Road near the shop, this bomb did not explode. After it was difffused all us kids were allowed to sit on it on the back of the lorry. A great deal of damage was done by enemy bombers trying to hit the railway which resulted in heavy war damage both sides of the railway, evidence of this is all the new buildings on Glenthorne Road, and the the little green at the end of Studland St and Dalling Road.Living where you do are you aware of the the famous Whitemouse garage that stood next to the Police Section House this was owned by the famous racing driver Prince Bira of Siam now Thailand,he used to test his racing cars up and down Perrers Road in the middle of the night, he also used to keep his racing cars in Perrers Road you will see at the side of No 41 (opposite where I lived)that the lower R/H side of the building has been extended and a window fitted, this was originally an area where the Costermongers from Hammersmith Market used to keep their mobile stalls overnight, this ran the full length of the building and at least 4 stalls could be garaged overnight, it eventually became a builders storage yard. My uncle and aunt lived on the upper floor. Other severe bomb damage in Perrers road was on the corner in the middle, if you notice the properties on each corner are are more modern,originally there was a shop on each corner, the one on the western corner was a motorcycle shop with a yard attached next to no 31 (where John Thaws widow currently lives).As a matter of interest there is quite a bit on the Internet about Prince Bira and the Whitemouse Garage.I hope that I have not bored you.Regards,Ron Curant( now resident Isleworth/Osterley).

Ron Curant ● 5281d

Well I never.....I live in Flora Gardens flats, the small block next to the old section house.  For some reason, of which I now know why, the road that runs through the estate from Dalling Road to Ravenscourt Road is listed as Albion Gardens in many A-Z's.  And I do remember some prefab houses where I think you are referring to the prefab day nursery must have been.Many thanks for your memories, I will definately be paying a visit to the Hammersmith Archives.

Carol Burge ● 5281d

I was 4 in 1939 when WW11 started and 10 when it finished.My first school was the original Flora Gdns school which stood to the west of the present school. I lived at No. 80 Perrers Road throughout the Blitz and was not evacuated until the V2 Rockets started coming over. We ended up in the Anderson (corrugated iron) shelter virtually every night during the Blitz, My grandad refused to go down the shelter and several times after air raids we found him stiil asleep on the floor surrounded by broken window glass etc from the blast. The house almost opposite( No37) ended up with a large tree sticking out of the roof.Flora Gdns School was flattened (overnight thank goodnes) I was transferred to John Betts school in Paddenwick Road.A landmine and a stick of bombs were responsible for the damage to Flora Gdns school a lot of surrounding property sufferred heavy damage as well, all the houses on the west side of Dalling road and the Police Section house were demolished together with the houses on the opposite side between Attwood Road and Redmore road were also demolished, with the Prince of Wales Pub and shops to the south only being damaged moderately and fortunately able to commence trading again after the damage was cleared, one being a greengrocers and another a grocers and dairy. When the bomb damage was cleared between Attwood Road and Raynham Road a Prefabricated Day Nursery was built.Until the relacement in recent years of the Railway Bridge in Dalling Road the bridge showed signs of being peppered by shrapnell.Another row of terraced houses was demolished I believe it was called Albion Gdns and ran north to south in between where Flora Gdna Flats stand and the back gdns of the houses in Ravenscourt Road.The bombed houses provide a haven for us to play in and not far to run home if the air raid warning sounded, which was mounted on the roof of the police section house.I am now 75 years of age and have very clear memories of this period, I returned to Brackenbury Road school in 1945.There are photo's of the wreck of Flora gdns School and the surrounding area prior to the Blitz in Hammersmith Archives with copies available.Ron Curant.

Ron Curant ● 5281d

There is a talk this evening - 6.30pm - at Shepherd's Bush Library about the Bethnal Green tube station disaster in which a large number of women and children were killed in a crush when they were sheltering from an air raid. It's free - you can just turn up.

Karen Cooper ● 5303d

The London Metropolitan Archives (off Faringdon Road) has maps produced by the LFB (or whatever it was called then) of where bombs fell, and the degree of damage caused. I know this as there was thought to be bomb damage to my mansion block, and I could prove that no bombs fell near enough.

John Bellringer ● 5323d

www.lbhf.gov.uk/Images/67-72_AskewRoad_tcm21-132444.pdf  Try clicking on this link. This is from the local H&F News and there is an article underneath the ad for Adams Cafe about the bombing of the Sun Pub on the Askew Road. My neighbours told me about this when I moved here in the 80's plus a lot of other wartime tales. Wish I had written them down.

Marlene Plimley ● 5332d

Are the locations and dates of where bombs fell during the war listed anywhere. It ought to be possible to do a 'mash-up' with Google maps showing the location and perhaps even a time-line so you could replay the blitz in the local area. This would be a great way to give young people some sense of what it was actually like.

Ellen Kearney ● 5333d

Oh my goodness, sounds like you had a lucky escape!  And yes can well believe that peoples health was seriously affected by the debris etc.  There is also an article about the areas bombed in this weeks edition of the free H&F paper.  The reason I initially asked is what with all the recent coverage of Battle of Britain and Blitz it got me thinking about where I live and how the area was affected.  And was wondering if any of the parks/green areas were created from the aftermath of bomb damage, I believe there is an allotment area somewhere in London that was created rather then the area being built on.  Just me being curious really.

Carol Burge ● 5344d

What do you define as the Blitz period?I do know that the school on St Dunstans road made a lovely bonfire. The blaze was so bright that I could see it as if it were daylight.  You had a good view looking over the Rec whilst walking along Great Church Lane toward Wilsons Road.The roads to the south of Greyhound Rd. -Tasso Rd/Everington area got a real pasting. There were a lot of three storey houses around there and they were well  blitzed.There was a block of flats in the Fulham Palace Rd end of, I think, Claxton Grove, - the flats could be seen from Fulham Palace Rd down a narrow Lane almost next to Whites Lemonade depot - the first turning next to Aspenlea Rd. I saw Aspenlea Rd littered with incendiary bombs blazing merrily - luckily the incendiary that came through the roof of 44 Aspenlea was a ‘dude’ and was not found until the much later when roof repairs were undertaken.I’m thankful that for some unknown whim my mother made me stay at my aunt Molly’s during one of the raids - I often went home from 44 Aspenlea early to get to bed before the raids started. When I did get to my grandad's at 14 Wilsons Rd my aunt Lila took me up to my bed and I saw a slab of coping/concrete about 2ft long lying on my pillow.We often went to the Gloucester Rd tube when mum thought that the raids were getting a bit heavy. But, it was always will we/wont we. I don’t know why some nights were picked for the tube. Aspenlea Rd like many roads had the brick built shelters in the road but I didn’t know anybody who used them.A local personal tragedy occurred one night when a lad’s mother put a shilling in the gas and forgot that her son had his bedroom gas lamp on. That hit us kids more than any of the fatalities going on around us.My vivd abiding memory of the blitz - the family was crowded nto the backroom of 44 Aspenlea Rd - Mum, me, aunt Molly and her husbanbd Bill in bed (dying from TB) Molly's two, Geordie and Pat, aunt Agnes and her eldest, Mavis. All sitting silently listening to the crump of the bombs and the falling masonry, sounding like it was next door.I think this period was what decided my mum to take us off to Gloucestershire where, from Windward House near St Briavels, I could see down the Wye valley and watch the docks of Bristol burning bright.My mother had also contracted TB c1940 and died in 1954. The tube and the roughing it of wartme London could not have done her much good. I never heard her complain in all the time she was stricken and her stoicism was something to marvel at. God bless her.               

Stephen Hill ● 5344d