For more of all things London history, sign up for our new (free) newsletter and community: Londonist: Time Machine.
As the dust settled after another fire-and-brimstone raid on London, the smoking frontages of buildings occasionally toppling into the streets, City Police photographers Arthur Cross and Frederick Tibbs stepped out to catch the aftermath of the Blitz.
Their remarkable photos of the fallout feature as part of London in the Second World War, a free exhibition on at the London Archives from Monday 24 February-Thursday 30 October 2025.
Cross and Tibbs' poignant imagery, which is kept at the London Archives in Clerkenwell (371 photos in all, though just a selection will go on display), show the devastating effects of Second World War bombs in London, including 23 Queen Victoria Street collapsing, and a gaping hole rendered in the top of Bank Tube station.
These photos are just one aspect of what promises to be both a heart-wrenching and engrossing exhibition; London County Council bomb damage maps — taking after the style of Charles Booth's famous Poverty Maps — demonstrate how concentrated and intense bombing was in and around the City. London County Council (LCC) air raid fire report books — altogether split over 65 chronological volumes — show not just the extent of the bombing, but the meticulous way in which it was recorded.
Personal stories and the effects of the war on people's workaday lives bring an added human quality to the exhibition. The little-known story of Auxiliary Ambulance Station 50 in St Pancras, staffed entirely by South Asian Londoners, is shared, while Woolworths and Co staff magazines provide voices from those who continued working through the war, and a ration-friendly menu from a Lyons Corner House indicates what kind of food Londoners were dining on at the time.
Diary entries from Anthony Heap record strolls around the streets of London — both in the pitch dark of blackout, and while the city glowed in the fiery aftermath of bombing. "Rumour was right for once," Heap wrote in September 1940, "Most of the fires were along the docks and the Thames-side warehouses and apparently were started during the early evening raid. Five hundred bombers took part in this raid and so far it is estimated that last night's casualties amount to four hundred dead and over three times as many injured."
The optimistic, influential — and in parts, hugely flawed (not least the idea of building a series of six-lane motorways through central London) — County of London plan gets an airing too, examining the ways in which London sought to rebuild after the war.
Special events coinciding with the exhibition include Tim Kendall's reading of his anthology of Second World War poetry (Wednesday 5 March) and a monthly curator-led tour of the archives, which selects Second World War themed archives material. These events cost £5 each.
London in the Second World War, The London Archives, 24 February-30 October 2025, free
