Properties devastated by Luftwaffe raid

For a relatively recent thoroughfare in Canterbury’s long history, St George’s Place has undergone many changes in its just over 200-year history. It was first created in the 1790s, together with New Dover Road, as part of the nation’s system of turnpike roads. Almost straight away, the north side of the street, which we are concentrating on, was used to house barracks for the troops of first, the French Revolutionary wars, and then the Napoleonic Wars.

When hostilities ceased, the barracks were pulled down and a row of elegant, mostly Regency-style three-storey villas were built, from one end of the street to the other. Over time, an increasing number of Canterbury doctors and surgeons moved in here, so that it earned the nickname of ‘Doctor’s Row’.

The 1920s saw yet more changes as firms, such as solicitors gradually bought up these villas to make offices; Robert Brett & Son Ltd and the Pearl Assurance Company being among them. By the outbreak of the Second World War, only Doctor Wacher and his family remained.

The main blitz of Canterbury occurred in the early hours of Monday, June 1, 1942. Now being offices, the properties on the north side of St George’s Place were still empty from the weekend. Consequently, when the incendiary bombs fell, there was no one there to fight the fires that rapidly broke out.

The Wacher family fought in vain to save their home. In the days that followed, Dr Wacher wrote, very movingly, to his son away at school, to say that all had been lost.

The Pearl Assurance Co, at Nos. 12 to 15