Central London Electricity Company, St Martin's Lane

11 May 1941

By Tabatha Parker

The Central London Electricity Company suffered bomb damage at many of its buildings during the Blitz. A sub-station in Duke Street W1 was hit by a bomb that destroyed 80% of the outgoing cables and buckled the control switchboard. In St James’s District, fifteen transformer stations were put out of action on the same night.

However, the most dramatic incident was the bombing of the company's Bulk Electricity Supply sub-station located on St Martin’s Lane WC2. A three storey building (formerly the Chippendale's workshop), the CLE supply station was heavily damaged by a 1,000lb high explosive bomb that fell on 11 May 1941 at 3.50am. The sub-station caretaker and his wife, sheltering in the basement, were killed instantly.

Nearly 2,000 tons of machinery was located on the different floors of the building along with large reserves of sulphuric acid. The explosion caused a major chemical fire. Thirty minutes later several heavy transformers collapsed into the basement (onto storage tanks holding thousands of gallons of oil used to power their diesel engines).These tanks inevitably caught fire.

Seven men were on duty, attempting to deal with incendiaries that had landed on the roof of the building. Of these seven, five managed to make it down through the toxic smoke to safety. The remaining two were trapped and died before they could be extracted.

During the night the flames were visible only as a bright interior glow. Instead, heavy black smoke from the burning oil poured out. Unable to use water (which assists the spread of oil fires), the Fire Service used large amounts of artificial foam to deprive the fire of oxygen. The foam soon spread out from the building, blocking the street.

Later, when the fire was out and the basement was surveyed, the walls were found to be covered with such a thick layer of soot that torchlight was useless. It took over seven months to clear the building of debris.