Bomb Havoc Over a Mile
It took a German bomb a matter of seconds to wipe out an ancient farm in a South-East urban district and spread damage among other buildings for over a mile on Thursday evening last week.
Farm buildings, which had stood on this spot for years, and which were among the last remaining traces of the once rural character of this rapidly developed and modernised district, crumpled under the blast of a terrific explosion and in an incredibly short space of time became a desolate heap of broken wood – a sorry spectacle of demolition.
In the immediate vicinity two old wooden fronted cottages, two other small houses, two farm cottages and a wayside coffee cabin were easy victims of the explosion, and, along the highway which skirts the farm, houses suffered in varying degrees from the concussion. Most of the dwellings had windows smashed and tiles ripped from their roofs. Some municipal buildings were damage. A Baptist church on the other side of the road had windows blown in, roof tiles smashed and its organ damaged. A nearby garage, an old inn, an ex-servicemen’s club, a workingmen’s club and a refreshment bar caught the blast, and further along the road an Anglican church, a Catholic boys’ college, shops and houses were damaged.
Immediately opposite the wrecked farm greenhouses in an old-established nursery were severely damaged – but the calamity which visited this property is dealt with in a separate report.
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Reported in the Bromley & District Times, 27th September 1940 (page 5)
