MARPLES  HOTEL - THURSDAY DECEMBER 12th 1940

Standing on the corner of Fitzalan Square and High Street, the site was occupied during the 1870s by the Wine and Spirit Commercial Hotel. By the late 1880s it was known as Market Street Wine Vaults. The owner was a John Marples, and the licence held in the name of Edward Marples. Despite a further change of name to the London Mart, regulars always referred to the pub as Marple's. It's official name was still the London Mart in 1940. The building itself was seven stories high comprising of guests bedrooms, concert rooms, bars and lounges with a network of cellars - it was thought of as a solid and safe building. The photograph taken below shows Marples on the right with a local firm of nurserymen next door in the three storey  building.

The first warning of the raid came at seven o'clock on a cold and clear winter's evening and as the night wore on the intensity of the raid grew especially in the city centre area. At 10.50 p.m. C&A Modes department store which lay opposite the Marples on High Street received a direct hit. Flying debris from the explosion crashed into the Marples pub injuring a number of customers who were taken down into the cellars to receive attention for their injuries.  At 11.44 p.m. fifty four minutes after the explosion at C & A's, a German high explosive bomb completely demolished the building. William Reading a Corporation Inspector who was in the nearby Fitzalan Square transport offices at the time recalls

"When I rushed outside I saw that the Marples building had been hit, the building had collapsed and where it had stood was a heap of rubble fifteen high"    

It was thought that no-one would have survived the explosion but nevertheless rescue work commenced the following day at 10.00 a.m.  Miraculously over the next few hours seven men were pulled alive from the wreckage. Two of them actually walked away unaided from the scene and were never heard of again. Of the other five who were pulled out, only one Edward Riley age 36 of Ecclesall Road, was from the Sheffield area. The other four were

1. John Watson Kay age 46, Boma Road, Trentham, Stoke on Trent respectively. 

2. William Wallace King, Arbett Parade, Bristol

3. Lionel George Ball, Knowle West, Bristol

4. Ebenezer Tall age 42, Clarissa Street, Shoreditch, London

"They told vivid stories of how they spent the night trapped in the cellars. How they could hardly breathe for smoke and dust...how they dug with their hands to make an air vent - how they dozed, weary and light-headed from the loss of blood."

Mary Walton in her book " Raiders over Sheffield" ascribed the tragic loss of life to the fact that the roofs of the cellars in the London Mart were not strengthened. The people who survived the explosion were said to have been in the smaller bottling cellar that had a stronger ceiling. Given the buildings size and structure the staff at the pub thought that it would be able to withstand significant bomb damage. A case of complacency? Possibly but I think the more likely cause is the size and impact point of the bomb on the pub which caused the building to fall in on itself.   

  See how the Sheffield Blitz was reported in The Times and The Scotsman newspapers

We can never know for certain how many people died in the explosion that devastated Marples. Over the following weeks 64 bodies were recovered from the rubble and the partial remains of six or seven other people were also identified. The force of the explosion and the ensuing collapse of the building meant that only 14 people could be visually identified : the remainder were identified through their personal belongings that had with them when they died. The most accurate estimate is that 77 people were in Marples at the time of the explosion and 70 died as a result of the injuries they received. It was without doubt the worst single incident for loss of life in Sheffield during the whole war. 

The table below lists the 46 persons who appear on Index to the "Civilian War Dead Roll Of Honour "for Northumberland, Durham and Yorkshire.

Ethel Beardshaw and Lilian Shooter were sisters. They were the daughters of James and Emma Dodd of 152 Cross Lane, Crookes, Sheffield 

Ada Buxton and Elsie Siddall lived at the same address - 144 Sutherland Road, Burngreave, Sheffield 

Lilian Shooter and Edith Wilson were barmaids working that night

Norman and Phyllis DAVIS were a married couple

Postscript

The clearance of the site took many weeks. It was estimated that over one thousand tons of rubble had to be removed from the site before it was cleared. The site lay derelict for 19 years. There is a photograph that was taken in 1950 that still shows the damage that occurred ten years earlier. The  cleared area  to the left of  the gutted building is where the Marples once stood

At the end of the  decade, a full nineteen years after it was destroyed a new public house  was built by John Smith's Ltd. It re-opened in 1959 and was for the first time officially known as Marples. The pub traded right up until the early summer of 2002 when it was suddenly closed. It was thought the pub was undergoing the usual periodic refit but it tuned out that the pub was closed for good. It remained empty until the early part of 2003 when it re-opened as "Hein Gericke" motor cycle accessories shop. The floors above the shop are believe or not occupied by student flats

The above photo was taken in 1940 and shows the Marples pub just a few months prior to its destruction. On the opposite side of the road is C & A Modes department store which received a direct hit on that Thursday evening. The buildings further up High Street were to suffer major bomb damage that night.

Sources

Sheffield Blitz - Paul Licence

Index to the "Civilian War Dead Roll Of Honour"
for Northumberland, Durham and Yorkshire.

The Sheffield Blitz was reported in The Times and The Scotsman newspapers

Raiders Over Sheffield - Mary Walton 

Authors Notes

One of the reasons why I'm interested in this incident is that my wfe's great Uncle Charlie (Charles Simpson) was due to play an exhibition snooker match against the reigning World Champion  Joe Davis at the Marples that night. However due to the disruption on the railways caused by the effects of war, Joe was unable to travel from Hull and so that match was postponed

The Marples was not the only pub in the centre of Sheffield that was destroyed that night. A further eight more have been listed in a separate section

When the war in Europe was over, a total of  60 595 U.K. civilians were killed, (29 890 in London), and 86 182 admitted to hospital (50 507 in London). For the month of December 1940 the UK civilian casualty figures were: 3,793 killed, 5,244 injured

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This page was last updated on 03/10/06 11:20

"There is no life that does not contribute to history."
Dorothy West