On 15th November 1940 Askham Lane was one of the streets damaged when bombs, intended for Clifton airfield, hit the City. A fascinating insight taken from the “Raids Over York” website which can be accessed by clicking here

But the raids of the 14/15th November 1940 also included more destructive types of bombs: high-explosive bombs. At 06:43 – with the daylight just breaking along the late-Autumn skyline, and more than five hours after the first incendiary bomb was reported in the Fishergate Area, by when most of the city’s civilians might well have returned from the safety of their dank and cold shelters to the comfort of their beds – ten, 50kg, high-explosive bombs fell on the edge of Acomb.

Eight of the bombs fell across fields in a line running from west to east at Penty’s Farm to the rear of No.17 Askham Lane. Seven of these exploded, creating craters dotted across the grassland, each about 6ft wide and 3ft deep. The other bomb fell in soft ground on Batchelor Hill field and failed to explode. This unexploded bomb was inspected the following day by an Army Bomb Disposal Squad called from Leeds.

The A.R.P. report states that ‘[v]ery little material damage was done, only damage to glass and slates of nearby houses being reported’. [That ‘only’ would surely have grated with local residents affected by the raid had they known of it being used so casually in this citation!]

Being on the fringe of the city, there was an agricultural cost in this raid. A ‘pony and three beasts in a paddock were killed outright’, another shortly afterwards, and three cattle were injured by flying splinters. The A.R.P. Report for this incident concludes with a very British observation on the concern for the welfare of the animals involved: ‘No A.R.P. Services were required for this incident but, being advised by Air Raid Warden, Mr. Arnott, Butcher, of Front Street [Acomb], slaughtered the injured animals’.