How long did it take to rebuild London after WW2?

[Streathamite]

I presume you mean large scale areas of destruction. There's still plenty of small to medium stuff. There's a car park sandwiched between two large buildings at the top of Finsbury Square that is a prime example. (I must add that I have no proof, this is from observation only).

You SURE about that one? been there quite a few times, used to work near there, that's a surprise to me

 

[Streathamite]

Croydon is the best one to go to as all the V wepons fell sort of london on that unfortunate Borough.

frankly, a reprise of that would, if anything, improve the place

 

[marty21]

If you look out for the 1950s infill houses, you can plot a line on the map in quite a few parts of South London where a single German bomber's incendiary bombs fell. Most such houses/flats constructed by the old Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth in Streatham/Clapham are a particularly dirty shade of yellow brick.

I used to work in Maida Vale, and there are infil houses on a lot of the streets, around Warwick Avenue and parallel streets.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

depends really what you mean by "rebuilt"

there are some sites that never got fully re-developed, or got turned into car parks or planned open spaces (e.g. Folkestone Gardens, New Cross)

the excalibur estate (U75 thread here) consists of "temporary" housing that was built just after the war, and is only now being redeveloped, although this was built on previously open space rather than a bombed site.

Does anyone know or have any old photos of Wardley Street or Garratt Lane Wandsworth during the 1930/1950's?

assuming that the usual web searches have failed, i'd suggest the local studies bit of the local library service.

 

[toblerone3]

The last city blitz bomb site was only built on in circa 1988 - its now City Thameslink station and offices .......much of the 1950 and 1960 crap is now being torn down and rebuilt - Paternoster Square area foe example.

Big bomb site in Mount Pleasant next to the sorting office. Is a car park. Original building was a parcel sorting office. Was destroyed by a bomb in 1941 has not yet been rebuilt.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

I remember getting the train between Southend and Liverpool and Fenchurch Street in the 1970s and there were still old bomb sites around in the East End then

 

[Hocus Eye.]

I know someone who was guiding a German businessman around London in a car. Mindful of the need not to mention the war to this important client she was stumped for a moment when on crossing the river into Southwark he asked why there were no old buildings there."They all fell down" she answered almost truthfully.

 

[19sixtysix]

There's new new Georgian style house on the brixton road that replaced a bomb site only a couple of years ago.

 

[stuff_it]

Judging from the state of the bombed out warehouses that we had a rave at by the River Lea in 2005 they are only just now finishing off bits due to the Olympics. Basically an open space with a few broken walls and some round bits of concrete where they filled in the craters a bit.

 

[stuff_it]

I know someone who was guiding a German businessman around London in a car. Mindful of the need not to mention the war to this important client she was stumped for a moment when on crossing the river into Southwark he asked why there were no old buildings there."They all fell down" she answered almost truthfully.

'They all fell down during the epic 1966 world cup afterparty' is what she should have said....

 

[ViolentPanda]

Does anyone know or have any old photos of Wardley Street or Garratt Lane Wandsworth during the 1930/1950's?

Faith

Hmm, there wasn't that much there worth photographing in the late '60s/early '70s. Wardley St was one of a series of roads that traversed the (extremely manky) Wandle (the stretch between Wandsworth High St and just shy of the swimming pool in King George's Park got covered in when the Arndale shopping centre was built), which ran parallel with Garrett Lane up as far as Kimber road before flaring off toward south Wimbledon. I remember my nan saying that the Wandsworth/Earlsfield border bit of Garrett Lane was a bit ropey between the wars, because so many of the people who lived in the terraces thereabout worked in local factories which either went on short time or closed down, so a lot of folk were on their uppers.

Wandsworth History Society used to have a good photo-archive back when I last checked, as did the council offices (both on the part of Wandsworth High St that follows on from East Hill. Wandsworth Council archives are also pretty helpful if you phone them up and tell them what you're after, although what they're charging for prints nowadays, I don't know.

 

[spitfire]

You SURE about that one? been there quite a few times, used to work near there, that's a surprise to me

Yeah, pretty positive, think it's been built on now though. In between Tabernacle Street and City Road.

 

[oryx]

Does anyone know or have any old photos of Wardley Street or Garratt Lane Wandsworth during the 1930/1950's?

Faith

Wandsworth Museum (which I last visited in 2005 when it was run by the Council) has a good collection of old borough photos.

http://www.wandsworthmuseum.co.uk/