# Has any damaged/destroyed part of London not been rebuilt since the Blitz?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 19, 2015, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392 "2015-05-19T23:09:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2015, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/1 "2015-05-19T23:09:07Z")
I remember seeing a movie set in London in the mid-Fifties, and there was still unrepaired devastation. If all the damage has since been repaired, which street or neighborhood was the last to be fixed up?
---
### Author:  [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2015, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/2 "2015-05-19T23:47:41Z")
I can’t speak for London, but I did come across this article not long ago, relating to the [National Picture Theatre in Kingston upon Hull](http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/Hull/NationalPictureTheatreHull.htm).
It is said to be the last surviving ruin of a blitzed civilian building left standing in Britain.
---
### Author:  [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2015, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/3 "2015-05-19T23:59:02Z")
Given the price of real estate in London I’d be shocked if there was still a scrap of land that had been left derelict for 70 years.
I was born in South-East London and have a lot of family there and I was never aware of any land still bombed out (eighties onwards). I remember the huge amount of derelict land in the Docklands and the redevelpoment, but that was due to the closure of the docks.
Not London, but in Alan Garner’s famous fantasy novel **Elidor** written in 1965 and set in contemporary Manchester, he describes whole streets of empty bombed out houses where the children find a gateway to another world.
---
### Author:  [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/4 "2015-05-20T01:35:15Z")
The Blitz is why there’s so many modern buildings located next to very old ones in London. Conversely, Paris has more uniform architecture because the city was surrendered before it was razed.
---
### Author:  [@Whatever4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whatever4)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/5 "2015-05-20T03:17:49Z")
I think there was a Time Team episode about a block of flats, maybe several blocks, destroyed during the Blitz. It hadn’t at the time of the show been rebuilt, intentionally I believe, to serve as a reminder. I’ll see if I can find the show. The dig didn’t turn up much but several of the former residents were interviewed.
---
### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/6 "2015-05-20T03:52:48Z")
^
Were’nt blocks of flats a post war thing, mainly to house the people who had been bombed out?
The lawyer in the OP might want to check out [Grays Inn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray%27s_Inn). It was bombed [quite heavily during the war](http://alondoninheritance.com/thebombedcity/the-lost-buildings-of-south-square-grays-inn/) and the building were rebuilt in the same style (but with 50’s interiors, which makes them bloody awful from inside). You can still see damage in some parts. but they have to point it out to you.
---
### Author:  [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/7 "2015-05-20T04:09:12Z")
> [@AK84](#):
>
> ^
> Were’nt blocks of flats a post war thing, mainly to house the people who had been bombed out?
No, there’s lots of pre-war blocks of flats in London. They were constructing them from the late Victorianperiod onwards. [Here’s](http://www.cityandurbaninternational.com/images/rentals/grand-mansion.jpg)a block of flats from around the turn of the twentieth century. Here’s one from the 1930s.
There were, it’s true, lots _more_ following postwar reconstruction.
---
### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/8 "2015-05-20T04:53:41Z")
[The Victoria and Albert Museum still has bomb damage visible.](http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/v-and-a-at-war-1939-45/)
---
### Author:  [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/9 "2015-05-20T09:14:37Z")
> [@Whatever4](#):
>
> I think there was a Time Team episode about a block of flats, maybe several blocks, destroyed during the Blitz. It hadn’t at the time of the show been rebuilt, intentionally I believe, to serve as a reminder. I’ll see if I can find the show. The dig didn’t turn up much but several of the former residents were interviewed.
You’re presumably thinking of their special programme about the Shoreditch Park excavations.
> **[Shoreditch Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoreditch_Park)**
>
> Shoreditch Park is an open space in Hoxton area of Shoreditch in the London Borough of Hackney. It is bounded by Poole Street (to the north), Rushton and Mintern Streets (to the south) and New North Road (west) and Pitfield Street (east). The park derives its name from the Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch, the local authority when it was established. The park is 7.7 hectares (19 acres) in extent.
> The area that now includes much of Shoreditch Park was originally open fields. During the Regenc...
Some of the City churches, such as [St Dunstan-in-the-East](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Dunstan-in-the-East) and [Christ Church Greyfriars](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Church_Greyfriars), were left as ruins and converted into small parks. The City had had too many parish churches anyway, so this was an opportunity to rationalise things.
[QUOTE=beowulff]
The Victoria and Albert Museum still has bomb damage visible.
[/QUOTE]
Quite a few public buildings have minor bomb damage deliberately left unrestored. The most obvious example would be the [Churchill arch](http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/architecture/palace-s-interiors/members-lobby-churchill-arch/) in the Palace of Westminster.
---
### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/10 "2015-05-20T09:46:08Z")
Not London - but I was in Coventry Cathedral recently. A very moving place dedicated to reconciliation.
[http://www.historiccoventry.co.uk/cathedrals/ruins-now.php](http://www.historiccoventry.co.uk/cathedrals/ruins-now.php)
---
### Author:  [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/11 "2015-05-20T10:53:04Z")
In the City of London itself (the square mile in the centre of Greater London), there’s [Christ Church Greyfriars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Church_Greyfriars). Only the tower was left standing after the blitz, and now the rest of the church is a public garden. (I visited the ruined church earlier this year.)
---
### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/12 "2015-05-20T10:53:52Z")
> [@chacoguy](#):
>
> The Blitz is why there’s so many modern buildings located next to very old ones in London. Conversely, Paris has more uniform architecture because the city was surrendered before it was razed.
Yup, but there are still plenty of bullet holes and pockmarks on buildings left from that period - the Germans didn’t surrender it without a token fight. And, well, the Germans might not have bombed the place… [but the Allies did](http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=830546). Hence why the western suburbs have changed from working class, heavy industry in the 40s to office high-rises in the 60s. Explosive gentrification 😛
---
### Author:  [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/13 "2015-05-20T12:16:58Z")
Across the street from my old house was an ‘allotment’ which was actually where a few houses were destroyed in the war and they let it grow over.
Outside my current house is a large actual allotment, which grew from the WW2 victory gardens. It started out as people using the exposed soil in a 1940s bomb crater and they gradually tore up more paving stones to enlarge it and make it more regularly shaped.
---
### Author:  [@Dave.B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave.B)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/14 "2015-05-20T12:28:42Z")
Again, not London, but there is also Charles Church in Plymouth:
> **[Charles Church, Plymouth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Church,_Plymouth)**
>
> Charles Church is a now derelict church, the second most ancient parish church in Plymouth, Devon, England. It was founded around 1640, but not completed for many years. It is a Gothic style church, consisting of a west tower, with spire, a nave with north and south aisles, north and south porches, and a chancel with vestry. The tower was completed in 1708, and the original wooden/lead covered spire was replaced by a stone spire in 1766.
> During the nights of 21 and 22 March 1941, the church w...
---
### Author:  [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/15 "2015-05-20T13:24:33Z")
> [@chacoguy](#):
>
> The Blitz is why there’s so many modern buildings located next to very old ones in London. Conversely, Paris has more uniform architecture because the city was surrendered before it was razed.
And why Coventry is a mess of concrete, it was largely rebuilt cheaply in the 50s and 60s.
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/16 "2015-05-20T13:27:05Z")
> [@Dave.B](#):
>
> Again, not London, but there is also Charles Church in Plymouth:
> [Charles Church, Plymouth - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Church,_Plymouth)
We’ve got one like that in Southampton:
> **[Holyrood Church](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holyrood_Church)**
>
> Holyrood Church (or Holy Rood Church) was one of the original five churches serving the old walled town of Southampton, England. Built in 1320, the church was destroyed by enemy bombing during the blitz in November 1940. In 1957 the shell of the church was dedicated as a memorial to the sailors of the Merchant Navy. It is a Grade II\* listed building.
> The first documentary evidence of the existence of Holyrood was in 1160 when Henry II granted the Chapels of St. Michael, Holyrood, St. Lawrence...
---
### Author:  [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/17 "2015-05-20T13:27:44Z")
> [@bob\_2](#):
>
> Not London - but I was in Coventry Cathedral recently. A very moving place dedicated to reconciliation.
>
> [http://www.historiccoventry.co.uk/cathedrals/ruins-now.php](http://www.historiccoventry.co.uk/cathedrals/ruins-now.php)
[QUOTE=Coventry City Fans]
In our Coventry homes,
We speak with an accent exceedingly rare,
You want a cathedral we’ve got one to spare,
In our Coventry homes…
[/QUOTE]
> **['In Our Coventry Homes' - Coventry City FanChants](https://fanchants.co.uk/football-songs/coventry_city-chants/in-our-coventry-homes/)**
>
> Anyone want a cathedral?
---
### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/18 "2015-05-20T13:39:17Z")
> [@amanset](#):
>
> And why Coventry is a mess of concrete, it was largely rebuilt cheaply in the 50s and 60s.
Birmingham, too. Though to be honest it’s hard to see why they bothered rebuilding in a lot of places.
---
### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/19 "2015-05-20T15:25:25Z")
Many thanks to you all. Good to know.
---
### Author:  [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2015, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392/20 "2015-05-20T16:15:04Z")
I understand they’re still finding and removing unexploded ordnance. Hey, did Lt Brian Ash ever marry Susan Mount? BTW, I thought she was ever so hot in “To Sir, With Love”.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-damaged-destroyed-part-of-london-not-been-rebuilt-since-the-blitz/720392.md?page=2)