Oxford Street, Lambourn
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Oxford Street, Lambourn by Stephen McKay as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Oxford Street, Lambourn
Image: © Stephen McKay Taken: 24 Jun 2021
The scene here, a few yards from Lambourn's Market Square appears ordinary enough but a small plaque on the nearest house tells of a terrible event that occurred on Tuesday 13th April 1953. On that date a tanker lorry conveying 3,600 gallons of aviation fuel suffered a brake failure as it approached the village down Hungerford Hill. The driver, Mr Reginald Bungay of Swindon, did well not to hit parked cars as he careered along the High Street and across the Market Square at 60mph, frantically blowing the horn, but he could not avoid colliding with buildings here on Oxford Street. The result was a massive explosion and fire and the driver was killed instantly. Miraculously there were no other injuries but the property damage was extensive and 26 people, including five children, lost their homes. The full story of the fateful day is told here: https://lambourn.org/tanker-crash-april-1953/.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
51.508629
Longitude
-1.530221