ST GEORGE'S DAY PARADE

The photos were taken in Saxon Road and Meeching Rise long before South Way was built. Note the empty plot between no 27 and 21. Houses were built on the land  shortly after these pictures were taken.

Why are there missing houses on Meeching Rise? Was it bomb damage?

I lived in 58 South Road which had damage from a direct hit on the house that stood behind on Chapel Street (Seaview House?).

In talking with the late Bob Holden he said there was only one significant 'raid' and that was by a lone bomber which dropped a stick of bombs in a line across town. One of which took out the river bank by Huggets - you could still see where the mooring post was exposed below the level of the bank, and the one one took out the house on Chapel Street, so maybe another destroyed the houses on Hillrise? I had a feeling that the ghost of the little girl Mae Bollen wandered through our house, she was killed by the blast whilst sheltering in the garden of South Road.

Your uncle Jack here, Rob. That stick of bombs hit the convent in Church Hill; that house on Meeching Rise; the house in Chapel Street and the Catholic Church Hall. We used to play on the bomb site in Chapel Street and found lots of artefacts. It was not 'till later that we discovered that someone died there.

The bombsite in Chapel Street was finally redeveloped in 1980 !

These pictures must have been taken in 1958 or 1959 as the deeds on our house that was built on this land say 1959. Very interesting article.

I remember the houses being built on the land between 21 and 27. I lived at 29 which is on the corner of Saxon Road.