The Box That Never Was...... Daily Mirror (12-Sep-1934)

[petewilson]

This has got to be my favourite Newspaper article in the whole collection it's also the last one!

Best of Luck with this one banzai!  

[hb88banzai]

Very interesting article, indeed.

It's R31, which went active on 05 Nov 1934, so this was less than two months before the commissioning date.

Looks like they just moved it across the street/junction.

From the photo and description it appears to have originally been erected at the western tip of what was Northumberland Heath common land (junction of Colyers Lane, north side and Bexley Road, southeast side), but that area was in the process of being sold off for development.

The new site was at the south corner of this same five-way junction (junction of Bexley Road, southeast side and Barnehurst Avenue, southwest side), on what remained common land.

Wish we had all the photos that were taken of this incident. It's an absolutely fascinating study in concrete Box construction, even in the poor quality copy we see here. You can see how it was slotted together. Oh, for a good shot of the roof and Ring Beam!

This would have been a Mark 2. Wonder if they re-used the same components for the rebuild on the other corner or if parts were damaged in the deconstruction process (either attempted or actual - "pick, spade and crowbar"... Yikes!).

A blowup seems worthwhile --

[hb88banzai]

Some modest attempts at enhancement to see if any more details can be gleaned --