Original City of London Ambulance Posts

[mikey]

Felled city of London pillar here in Queen Victoria Street Oct 1934.

 

[kutan66]

Looks like he's having a little lie down and a sleep!

 

[starcross]

Some digging around lead to finding a few new images of the AP1 Posts.
From Doorless, to more door, to even more doors, and then lights on top.

I wonder if the Doorless is the original (Far Left), then the addition of the small lower door for first aid supplies lead to the door getting larger over time. The light added was to make it easier to spot?

After seeing these variations, it isn't hard to imagine how they arrived at the AP2.
Larger Storage door in the lower compartment, a signal lamp on top for visual identification, and a larger phone compartment for a "modern" handset phone.

 

[starcross]

Some captures from "The Lavender Hill Mob" (1951) showing the 1927 style City of London Posts.

This second one is more problematic as they intercut different parts of central London in the scenes leading to it, as well as for different shots supposedly at the same location --

View attachment 61793

So I was able to watch a copy of this film today, and captured some additional images. The first post is indeed CoL 39 at Friday Street a real AP2. This second post is a film Prop as it is located on the corner of Bread Street and Cannon Street. The ruins in the background confirm this both from areal photos but also from the film itself. They drive up and down Bread street several times, and St. Paul's and Cheapside buildings can be seen in the background in both directions.

First they drive North towards Watling street to pick up the Officer south of the junction. Then with the Officer on the runner magically transport themselves southbound from north of Watling street junction to pass the ruin up there. After another cut of the officer on the runner leaning into the vehicle ends they are traveling South of Watling street to pull over next to the Flashing AP2 at the corner of Cannon Street. Another cut shows the ruin of St Mary le Bow church behind the officer, problem is that church is on the North end of Bread street on Cheapside nowhere near Cannon Street. The they fight over the suitcase, and when the guy gets out of the car he's back to being north of Watling street in the middle of Bread Street. This is so he can run around the corner down Cheapside. The next scene is at threadneedle, where you can just see CoL 04 in front of the Royal Exchange.

Anyway, its a fake location, but a fairly well done prop. For the 15 seconds its on screen its a fine film prop but not an exact replica.
Having been looking at the blueprints for a while now I can tell they skipped certain details.

1) they didn't make the molding correctly on the face. Its only two half round pieces stuck on, the center concave and lip are missing.
2) The door should say "City of London Police" on two lines and have a brass number plate. Even painted over we should be able to see them but nothing stands out.
3) The Dragon crest is not quite right. There is a hint of something but I'm not sure what it is. What it isn't is the dragon and shield of the City of London.
4) Next the lower storage doors are fairly well defined, and have correct molding and lock details, the corners are missing the 1 inch quarter round. it looks like a straight corner to me.
5) I also find the lantern to be a bit small and not quite the correct shape.


The Scene in question at Approximately 110-ish minutes into the film. Nearly at the end.
Note the Three Buildings in the background. On the right is the ruin at the Southwest corner of Bread and Watling. The middle further back is the building on Cheapside. And on the left is the steeple of St Vedast's Church on Foster Lane off of the west end of Cheapside where it meets St. Martin's Le Grand.



This is the Post war Map of the area showing the Blitz flattened landscape.


Here we have the View from 1952 looking East from St Paul's.
The buildings mentioned above are marked with X's and the location of the Post marked by an Arrow.

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/EAW041956 - 1952


Oddly enough the AP2 closest to that is at the roundabout in the dark section near St. Paul's at the bottom right. When they switched over to the PA3's in 1965 they moved it East just a little west of our film fake location to the corner of Friday and Cannon.

 

[starcross]

During WWII there were blackout procedures limiting the amount of light being scattered about. For the Police Box System this meant that they covered or limited the light in some way so as to not allow the Luftwaffe Planes to see them. They also fortified the Police boxes and Posts with Brick Pill Boxes and in some cases sandbags. Up to this point we've seen some of this in use on Metropolitan Boxes and Posts but not with the City of London.

I've found two photos now of the Blackout Pill Boxes around AP2's, A side view of No.51 on Fleet Street and a back view No.52 on Fetter Lane.
It's fascinating that the blackout visibility stripes are vertical instead of horizontal, a possible way to indicate critical infrastructure?

I'm still on the hunt for a front view to see how they left an opening for use.
Still with a standard brick size, we can at least work out how big the pill box was and its construction method.



This one from Memorylane - 21910515 - May 21st 1941
"Bomb damage around the City of London following the most devastating raid on London which took place on the night of 10/11 May 1941.
The moon was full and the Thames had a very low ebb tide. These two combined with a maximum effort by the Germans, to produce one of the most devastating raids on the capital. A unsafe building is demolished close to St Pauls Cathedral"



Listed as being Near St. Paul's, but shows the front of the Pill Box but only just.
Looks like the entrance is centered and it has a full roof with a cutout for the peak and lantern on the top of the AP2.