I recently came across a photograph of a family eating a meal outside the broken shell of Sayer Street School, which was bombed during the blitz. It stood out, because Sayer Street no longer exists. This was once a long road of shops – a fishmonger, cat-meat dealer, grocer, saddler, bookbinder – and solid, five-storey tenements in Elephant & Castle. When the blitz began, the street was hit by several bombs.
What happened next to Sayer Street encapsulates several aspects of the waves of development that continue to shape London – and the central role played by the bomb sites of the blitz 75 years after the first explosions.Read more
In the immediate aftermath of the war, Sayer Street was used as a car park. This was a popular use for bomb sites: indeed, the NCP car park empire began with the £200 purchase of a bomb site on Red Lion Square.
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