ARP Stretcher Railings

Wandering London's streets, as I often do, I am still surprised by the extraordinary things hidden in plain sight.

Take the railings, in the photo above. At first glance they appear to be your standard railings, which are quite often found south of the river, in places like Bermondsey, Brixton, Camberwell, Deptford, Southwark, etc..  There even some north of the River Thames, in Poplar.

However, these are no ordinary railings. They are almost 80 years old and once served a very different purpose.

During World War II many of the metal fences and railings, around various houses and buildings, were removed, so that the metal could be used for the war effort.

While much of the metal was used for munitions, vehicles and the like, some of the steel was used to make stretchers for the Air Raid Protection Officers, as casualty numbers in London were expected to be high.

Roughly 600,000 were mass-produced to a remarkably simple design; two long tubular steel poles, with two smaller ones linking them together, all supporting a strong steel mesh. The main poles had 'kinks' in them, which allowed the stretcher to be easily lifted from the floor, The 'kinks' also allowed for the stretchers to be stacked for easy storage and transportation.

Steel was chosen for the stretchers so that they could easily be disinfected, should London suffer from a chemical or gas attack.

When the war finally ended London looked like a battlefield, with buildings in a sorry state, craters in the roads and entire areas flattened.

With over half a million steel stretchers just lying around, London County Council decided to replace the railings and fencing, that had been removed predominantly from housing estates, with the steel stretchers, thereby upcycling the steel.

So, the next time you find yourself near one of London's older housing estates check out the railings, as you may just be standing by a piece of London history, that many are unaware of.