BUILDINGS WRECKED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 16 May 1941, Page 6

BUILDINGS WRECKED

RESULT OF RECENT RAIDS ON LONDON MANY HISTORIC PLACES [U.P.A.-By Electric Telegraph-Copyright] I (Rec. 1.10 p.m.) Rugby, May 15. | St. Clement Danes, which was dam- | aj.ed in previous raids, is now completely gutted, and 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. Damage to the British Museum necessitated the closing of the reading rooms. Stone’s chop house, which was started in 1770, was demol- , ished by bombs, and the Czech Red Cross building and the Shaftesbury Theatre are also wrecked. The Archbishop of Canterbury was sleeping at Lambeth Palace when incendiaries fell in the palace. Nearly all were extinguished, but the roof of the chapel was set on fire and burned out. Thousands of books in the palace ecclesiastical library were destroyed. The Archbishop of Canterbury was not in— j f jured. The Dean of Westminster has receiv- j ed thousands of letters and cables from j people all over the English-speaking ; J world, expressing sympathy in the bombing of Westminster Abbey. The Prime Minister of Canada, Mr ■ McKenzie King, sent the following cable: “I send my deepest sympathy to Mrs de La Billiere and yourself in your tragic experience. My sympathy • is widely shared by the Canadian people.” Mr Waterson, High Commissioner for south Africa, has written: “I share the sympathy and indignation of the whole civilised world which is with you and Britain at the present time.” The Dean said: “My desk is piled with cables and letter coming in every post, many of them containing money. American sympathy is immense.”