Plaque: Ewer Street bomb shelter
War Memorial
Erection date: 2014
Ewer Street Shelter
On 10 September 1940 the Ewer Bomb Shelter was hit during an air raid and 20 lives lost, including two wardens.
2014
We found each of these civilian casualties in the CWGC database and the make up is interesting: two children (aged 12 and 16); 12 women; only 6 men, of which 3 were air raid wardens. Of the 18 adults only 5 were below 50. All but 1 lived in the Union Street flats, which, looking at the buildings in that street, probably don't exist any more.
Site: Ewer Street burial ground (2 memorials)
SE1, Ewer Street
Current maps show Ewer Street shaped like a T on its side - very unusual. An 1862 map shows an L-shaped Ewer Street (without the northern branch), immediately to the north of the railway, whereas currently the east-west section is to the south of the line. All a good indication of the disruption brought by the railway.
A 1746 map shows the L-shaped "Euers Street" with a "Qu M" in the L's corner, and a "Burying Gr" adjacent, to the west.
The railway line must have used the land occupied by the east-west section of Ewer Street and by the buildings, and burial ground, on its southern side. And a replacement means of travelling east-west was provided by creating a new Ewer Street alongside the line, on the south.
We are pleased to have found the Quaker Meeting House on a map. Presumably the Baptist Church occupied the same site, possibly the same building, and we are disappointed not to have found a picture of it.
