Bomb Site Biography - Barbican

The first bombs to drop on the City during the Second World War landed on Fore Street. By the war’s end only a few buildings remained.

In this talk we look at what was here before the bombers came, what was lost, what survived and how the site has been used since.In this bombsite biography we will see this location change from an insalubrious outskirt of the City of London, known for criminality and the rag trade to a devastated wasteland and then being rebuilt as the Barbican Centre.

Going to the present day we will see how post war re-building has itself been replaced and repurposed.

IMPORTANT: This talk will be taking place in-person only at The London Archives, in Clerkenwell.