OLD LONDON

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 114, 16 May 1941, Page 7

OLD LONDON

TOLL OF DESTRUCTION

ARCHITECTURAL TREASURES

LAMBETH PALACE HIT

(Rec. 1 p.m.) LONDON, May 15,

The church at St. Clement Danes, •which was damaged in previous raids, is now completely gutted. The walls and the tower are all that remain. An oil bomb hit the Queen's Hall, which was burned out. The roof has fallen in, and the building is completely wrecked.

The damage to the British Museum has necessitated closfng the reading rooms. Stone's chop house, which started in 1770, was demolished by bombs. The Czech Red Cross building and Shaftesbury Theatre were also wrecked.

Bomb damage to Westminster School includes the destruction of the 200----year-old dormitory where the King's scholars slept and where the historic Latin play took place every December. Serious damage was done to the great school room where the annual ceremony of tossing the pancake took place. The panelling in the big hall with the memorial containing the names of old Westminster boys has been destroyed.

Beams of Australian hardwood have been offered by the Australian Government on behalf of the people of Australia to help repair the roof of Westminster Hall.

It can now be revealed that in a recent raid a big time-bomb came down in Fleet Street a few yards from the Australian Associated Press office, which, with neighbouring buildings, was temporarily evacuated.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was sleeping at Lambeth Palace when incendiaries fell on the palace. Nearly all were extinguished, but the roof of the chapel was,set on fire and burned out. A thousand books in the famous ecclesiastical library, which is attached to the palace, were destroyed. Archbishop of Canterbury was not injured. The Old Bailey, where two porters tarese killed, suffered damage ioj? the

third time since the war began

It is also re/ealed that the Liverpool Technical College, the public library, the museum, and other buildings were damaged in air raids.—U.P.A.

LONDON, May 15.

Famous London buildings which have been damaged in recent air raids include St. James's Palace, the Old Bailey, the international headquarters of the Salvation Army, and St. Thomas's Hospital. St. James's Palace is the oldest and most beautiful of the Royal residences in London. The State Departments luckily escaped damage, but the south end of the court from which privileged guests watch the proclamation of the King's accession has been wrecked. In Lambeth Palace the private pew used by Queen Elizabeth was badly damaged. The London Philharmonic Orchestra lost instruments worth thousands of pounds in the destruction of Queen's Hall. The Criminal Court of the Old Bailey is a heap of ruins, but the guilded figure of Justice which surmounts it ctill stands aloft. Despite additional damage caused in recent raids, St. Thomas's Hospital, which has already suffered £1,000,000 worth of damage, is still carrying on.