VIDEO - Footprints of World War Two in Beckenham and Penge (From News Shopper)
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VIDEO - Footprints of World War Two in Beckenham and Penge
10:57am Tuesday 10th November 2009 in War Stories By Jon Cheetham
An emergency food van following the bomb blast in Albemarle Road, Beckenham: Photo supplied by Bromley Central Library
LOCAL historian Gordon Dennington visits some of the places in Beckenham and Penge where significant incidents took place during the war.
As Mr Dennington points out, a decade ago, relics and scars of World War Two would have been much more visible in the local area, but modern development has erased all but a few of them.
Included in the video is Beckenham Green where a V1 flying bomb, or 'Doodlebug', landed on July 3 1944, killing three people and injuring 30 others. In a second attack later the same month another three more people were killed. St George's Church, Beckenham Public Hall and The Railway Tavern were all severly damaged in the two incidents, along with dozens of houses and shops.
Other featured locations are Penge Police Station in Penge high Street, where the framework of a former air raid siren is still slearly visible; and Beckenham Crematorium, where Mr Dennington points out some significant wartime graves and memorials.
