More family history - German Parachute mine tragedy.

 As I continue to research and build my family tree one of my favourite parts of this has been discovering where my ancestors lived and finding out what I can about the numerous places in SE London they lived in. Yesterday I discovered that my late Nan was living with her parents and siblings in a large block of flats in Southwark called Queens Buildings ( built in the 1880's) in the 1911 Census. I found several old photos but also discovered that in 1940 during the Blitz a German Parachute Mine destroyed a large section of one end of the Estate, killing 41 people, many of whom had taken refuge in the Number 1 Shelter which was collapsed by the bomb damage. Luckily my family had moved away by this period but reading accounts yesterday left me feeling extremely sad all day so I wanted to share it here.

Descriptions from some who had lived there describe them being of just two rooms with toilets  on the balcony, no baths or hot water and families of 4 or 5 sleeping together in the single bedroom even during the 1960's. The entire estate was demolished in 1970 and replaced with more modern social housing blocks of flats.

German Parachute Mines carried up to 2200 lb of explosives and the devastation can be seen from the image below where the blocks in light blue were all destroyed by the one single bomb.. 

This mine was dropped on the Woolwich Arsenal but failed to detonate.

The bomb destroyed the entire near section of the Queens Buildings estate.

Later photo - the entire estate was demolished on 1971.

This illustrates the size.