FAMOUS LONDON BUILDINGS DESTROYED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 December 1940, Page 5

FAMOUS LONDON BUILDINGS DESTROYED

In Nazi Air Raid on Sunday Night

DELIBERATE ATTEMPT TO SET CITY ON FIRE

GUILDHALL A CHARRED AND BLACKENED

SHELL

One of London’s most famous buildings, the historic Guildhall was left as a charred and blackened shell after Sunday night’s German raid, a 8.8. C. broadcast states. Yesterday the Prime Minister (Mr Winston Churchill) and the Lord Mayor (Sir George Wilkinson) visited the remains of the building. The hall in which speeches have been made by many famous British statesmen is open to the sky. The ancient statues of Gog and Magog are among' the charred debris. . A number of the beautiful churches built by Sir Christopher Wren were destroyed, and others were damaged, in what is summed up as a deliberate attempt to set fire to the city, without any thought of singling’ out military targets. The Central Criminal Court, familiarly known as the Old Bailey, was badly damaged. The Cheshire Cheese tavern, in which Dr Samuel Johnson used to dine, had a narrow escape and a house in a court off Fleet Street in which Johnson once lived was burnt out. British fighters which went up and drove off the raiders are said to have saved at least one section of the city from the bombing with high explosives which elsewhere followed on showers of incendiary bombs.