Bomb sites in the Poets Roads 1939-45
This picture was taken from near St Matthias Church. The Church itself survived the bombing but the Parsonage was destroyed.
This Parsonage was built in the Oxford Gothic style, rather like the Vicarage of the New St Mary's Church, in Stoke Newington Church Street. The latter survived, apart from some damage to the gable wall and roof.
This photograph was taken a few years before the building of the new Milton Gardens Estate was started. The pub has now been demolished and replaced by housing.
This picture was taken on 5th December 1945 from the back of Shakespeare Walk. It shows a devastated landscape from there to the backs of the houses in Albion Road. Everything between had been destroyed and the rubble cleared away.
The picture shows the huge bomb site in Milton Grove east, part of which was later preserved as an open space. We now know it as Butterfield Green, which seems to be bordered on the south by the old public right of way along Town Hall Approach and through to Wordsworth Road. The old Wordsworth School was at the end.
Uses of the Bombing Map on this website The Houses Left in the Poets Road Area After the BombingMost of these were demolished later as the estate was being built. The people living in them must have waited anxiously month after month for it to be their turn to be re-housed in a clean modern flat. One lady described how, when she got the letter and the keys from the Council, she came running down the road. An old tenant, who had been in his flat for a full four weeks, held up his hand and said, "Slow up lass. It will still be there when you get there. And you'll live in it for fifty years."
To be able see the backs of these houses in Shakespeare Walk from Town Hall Approach, all the houses in between must heve been demolished. Binyon House was later built between Town Hall Approach and Shakespeare Walk.
Milton Grove looking south from the junction with Town Hall Approach, showing the Old Town Hall, Public Laundry and Public Baths just before demolition
|