Bomb Damage Maps 1939-1945

bombdamage

Several years ago, we featured some striking maps from a small exhibition at the London Metropolitan Archive. Each map was a detailed plan of a small part of London, the basemap being from 1916, with individual houses clearly shown. Many houses were just shown in white, but a number were coloured in various colours – showing which houses had been hit by bombs during the London Blitz in the Second World War, and the level of damage. Additionally, circles show the impact locations of V1 and V2 rockets. The maps were annotated with the damage/impact information by the London County Council, the city’s public authority at the time, shortly after the war finished, as a visual record of the extend and severity of the damage. The concept of colour coding individual houses based on an observed attribute is reminiscent of the famous Booth poverty maps, completed 70 years before, although of course recording a very different attribute.

Previously, you needed to visit the archive yourself and make an appointment to see the maps, but now, Laurence Ward, Principle Archivist of the London Metropolitan Archive, has taken these maps, professionally scanned them and reproduced all 110 in this beautifully presented, large-format hardback book “The London County Council: Bomb Damage Maps 1939-1945”, which is published by Thames & Hudson on Monday 31 August, to mark the 75th anniversary of the first German air raids in London in September 2015.

The first thing that struck us on opening the book is its size. It’s a weighty tome, containing 110 maps scanned at high resolution and reproduced in full colour, most across two pages so presented approximately in A3. It also has a large and detailed introduction including thirty pages of photographs, tables of statistics and background text – indeed the maps start not until Section 8. The book finishes with another 50 pages of well-reproduced black-and-white photographs of the bomb damage and recovery efforts. The author and publisher have taken time to make this a high quality piece, with an attractive font used both for the title and the accompanying text. The inside cover jacket includes a key to the damage colours used in the maps, detachable as a bookmark.

It is striking to see the level of damage that occurred in the City of London – a huge swathe of land is coloured purple “damaged beyond repair”. The map, and photographs, of what is now the Barbican area, show the near complete destruction which resulted in this whole district being redesigned – not even the old road network survived.

The book immaculately completed and is an essential part of any London-phile’s coffee-table book collection. It available to order from all good booksellers, including from Amazon UK.

Thanks to Thames & Hudson for the review copy.