Introduction to the LCC Bomb Damage Maps

At the end of the Second World War, The London County Council commissioned maps detailing the nature and extent of bomb damage throughout the capital. These maps are kept at the London Metropolitan Archives, who also have a facsimile set on public view. In Autumn 2008, I photographed the full set, and made them available on flickr.


Composite image of LCC bomb damage maps

A book of these maps was produced by the London Topographical Society, but is very difficult to get hold of. Some London Borough Libraries have copies for reference, but I feel these maps should be more widely available.

The maps highlight damage to each individual dwelling – coded from black (total destruction) to yellow (minor damage). Documentation of damage to public buildings is somewhat erratic. Here is a sample map of an area of Kennington in South London which suffered considerable damage:

Key:
Black - Total destruction
Purple - Damage beyond repair
Dark Red - Seriously damaged, doubtful if repairable
Light Red - Seriously damaged, repairable at cost
Orange - General blast damage, minor in nature
Yellow - Blast damage, minor in nature
Green - Clearance areas
Small circle - V2 Bomb
Large circle - V1 bomb


These maps are fascinating documents, and extremely useful for investigating London’s wartime history, but they do have shortcomings. The most frustrating of these is that they only cover the LCC area, which excludes badly hit areas of Essex, Kent, Surrey and Middlesex which were already very built up, and now form part of Greater London.


The LCC covers the red area here - as you can see, much of Greater London is excluded.

The local authorities in these areas produced their own maps, which are less well documented than the LCC maps (see an example of a map for Wimbledon here). The Middlesex County Council Maps are held by the LMA, and resemble the LCC maps, but have a different, less detailed, colour scheme.


Middlesex County Council Bomb Damage Map for Neasden

My flickr set of these maps provoked lively discussion and numerous responses on blogs and local community forums. My next post will highlight some of these. Future posts will examine some of this material further, in combination with modern mapping and information technology.

Scope and aims of this blog

In 1940, London found itself at the frontline of the Second World War. By 1945, a third of its housing stock was destroyed, and over a million people were homeless. Central and local government kept records of this devastation, many of which can be found in the National Archives and London Metropolitan Archives.

In 1945, The London County Council commissioned maps detailing the nature and extent of bomb damage throughout the capital. Future posts will examine some of this material, and how it can be combined with modern mapping and information technology to improve our understanding of London’s wartime experience, and the lasting effects on our city.

Life in the capital continued throughout the war, and important work was undertaken to support the war effort. Deep below Smithfield Market, future Nobel laureate, Max Perutz, was working on the top-secret Project Habbakuk (sic). In future posts, I hope to recreate some of the experiments, and explain some of the science and history behind them.

Meanwhile, whilst most of London’s colleges and universities evacuated to places of relative safety, Birkbeck College kept functioning throughout the war, right in the heart of London. In the 50’s, classics professor, E. H. Warmington, recalled Birkbeck’s wartime experience. I will use excerpts of his work to retell Birkbeck’s wartime story for a modern audience.

I have been meaning to write about this for a while, so when I had to create a blog for an assignment for Birkbeck’s News on the Net course, it seemed the ideal opportunity.