Blue Plaque remembers the two Zeppelin raids on Bury in WW1

The first air raids on Bury St Edmunds 100 years ago have now been marked with a Blue Plaque on one of the buildings that were hit.

The plaque above the St Andrew’s Street South door of Denny Brothers’ stationers and art shop records the Zeppelin raids of April 30, 1915, in which the shop was hit but only a dog died, and of 1916, which killed seven people.

Martyn Taylor, of the Bury Society, who organised the plaque, said: “With no public acknowledgement to these events Denny’s kindly agreed to an approach by the Bury Society to put up a Blue Plaque.”

He said the fact the building was owned by a family business had made the process a lot easier than for some of the seven other plaques in the town, where there were problems finding out who to ask.

In 1915 the building was James Pettitt’s stables. The Bury Free Press of May 8, 1915, has a picture showing an incendiary bomb caused a fire which left the three-storey building roofless. It was re-roofed on two storeys.

The BFP story says a Pvt P O Bass, billeted at the nearby Everard’s Tap, broke the stables door down and rescued the four army horses inside.

Incendiaries also fell in Butter Market where they hit the shops of Jeremiah Day bootmaker, Mrs Wise ladies outfitters, Johnson Bros dyers, George Cousins photographer and Miss Clark’s tobacconist.

At the unveiling St Edmundsbury mayor Patrick Chung, thanked Mr Martyn for marking the town’s history.

The seven people killed in the 1916 Zeppelin raid on Bury St Edmunds were: Henry Adams, George Kimberly Adams, Annie Evelyn Dureall, James Dureall, Catherine Dureall, Pte Hubert Hardiment and Harry Frost.