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London Road North, LOWESTOFT, NR32 1HA

Nice early twentieth century building - does anyone know what business was here before?

Snow was falling on Lowestoft on 13th January, 1942 when at 4:20 in the afternoon the air raid sirens sounded the alert. Seven minutes later a lone Dornier Do 217, bearing the Holzammer (“Mallet”) insignia of Luftwaffe’s 9/KG.2 unit and piloted by Oberleutnant Ernst Walbaum, swept low over the town centre. Following the course of London Road North it dropped four high explosive bombs which fell into the shopping centre. The effect was devastating and in a few seconds a row of shops and buildings were reduced to rubble and many more were damaged by blast. Twelve buildings, Nos. 86 to 108 on the east side of London Road were totally destroyed, and many more on the opposite of the road and in the immediate vicinity were badly damaged. Seventy-one people, civilians and service personnel alike, were killed and the body of one victim was never found. The shops and businesses hit and destroyed were Aldertons (Footwear) Ltd.; Morlings Music Shop; Trueform Boot Company Ltd.; J. Hepworth & Sons, Outfitters (with five apartments above in one of which was located the Dental Practice of Peter Walter Davis), Chipperfields Hardware Store in The Marina at the rear of No. 100, Fifty Shilling Tailors Ltd., Boots the Chemist and shopping arcade, W. B. Cooper, Ltd., China Dealer, Eve Brown Gowns, Bonsall’s the Jewellers, R. Waller & Sons restaurant and grocery.

The large box can only accept ready-franked mail mainly for the Council Offices opposite and other businesses.

At 1627 hours on Tuesday 13 Jan 1942, a low flying Dornier Do 217 flying through a snowstorm dropped 4 large HE (high-explosive) bombs in London Road North, Lowestoft. Waller's Restaurant was full of service personnel at tea and within seconds the whole row of shops and premises had been reduced to a huge pile of rubble. Twelve people were rescued from beneath the rubble but 70 died and over 150 were injured in Lowestoft's blackest day of the war. In 1992, the Jack Rose Old Lowestoft Society (JROLS) raised funds for a memorial to the civilian war dead in Lowestoft. It was one of the late Jack Rose's long held ambitions to honour those who died in air raids on the town and this was the culmination of his and the society's efforts. The memorial was originally located on London Road North near to Marks & Spencer's but was moved in 2005 to a wall adjacent to Savers in The Marina.

On a Sunday morning