Maps of WW2 London

I like maps. It's a hangover from my A level geography studies and now where ever we go on holiday I buy the local OS maps to pour over before we go - it helps me get a feel for the area. I wanted to do the same for war time London and used "The London County Council Bomb Damage Maps 1939-1945" by Laurence Ward.

 

 

It's a big, heavy book and has detailed maps covering the whole of London.

 

Area covered by each numbered map

 



The maps were created by the Architect's Department of the London County Council and were meticulously hand coloured in to document the scale of  damage caused by bombing.

 

 

Key to LCC bomb damage maps

 

Black shaded areas were totally destroyed, purple shading indicated buildings damaged beyond repair, while at the bottom of the scale yellow showed minor blast damage.



Map 62 Holburn, Bloomsbury, City of London (west)
 

Map 62 (above) shows the huge area of purple shaded buildings which were damaged beyond repair in the streets surrounding St Paul's, a lot of which happened in the huge raid and fire storm of December 29th 1940, when the famous photograph of St Paul's rising above the smoke and flames was taken. 

Map 63 City of London (east), Whitechapel

The maps were helpful for finding the setting for the ambulance station in East End Angels, just a short raven's flight from the Tower of London shown on map 63.

More details of where the bombs fell in London during WW2 can be found at Bomb Sight here  along with photos and first hand accounts from people who were there.