*click for larger
On 20th December, 1940 an incendiary device lodged in the spire of the Hoylake Congregational Church (the church right on the roundabout at King’s Gap – you might well know it as Hoylake Chapel website). As you can see from the photo above the church suffered some structural damage. Good to see that one of Hoylake’s Grade II Listed buildings is still standing today.
Many thanks to local historian and author Neil Holmes for the image. You can find out more about Liverpool Blitzed over on Neil’s facebook page.
If you’ve got old images of Hoylake captured during either World War please do send them in.
Christmas present from Adolf!
It lost its spire that night. Maybe somebody has a photo of it with the spire intact?
My Father PC William Reeves was the Policeman on duty that night when this happened and arrived with the Fire Engine. They were told a tramp was sleeping inside and my Father insisted on going in to find him.
Fortunately no-one was inside but he was off work for some weeks quite ill with Smoke Inhalation causing lung problems.
I was just three days old when the church was bombed and in bed with my mum at home in Cable Road South just around the corner from the Church, it was a very near escape I have to say.
Helen Carr.
This is what real worship should do from the inside out.
Or to paraphrase a well known Italian job quote
It really is supposed to blow the blooming roof off!
Amen
Thanks for this photo, a copy of which I shall put with my family history papers. Although I was only just 2, I remember the event – at the time we lived at 21 Back Sea View (the bottom flat) with my aunt Margaret Roberts living at 19 (top flat), and on the night in question mother and aunt took me under the stairs to take shelter. Mother always said that I remembered it because the two of them were singing throughout the raid so I would not be frightened. Meantime my dad & Margaret’s husband Frank, were in Auxilliary Fire Service & they attended the blaze. Some years after my dad died, Frank told me how, presumably due to smoke & fumes, he had passed out, and dad carried him out of the burning church Many thanks indeed for the photo