At 4.40 pm on Monday, 30 September 1940, the air raid siren sounded at the police station in the Digby Road, warning of the approach from the west of a squadron of about 150 German Heinkel He.111 bombers which proceeded to drop about 300 bombs in three lines across the town. Although the bombing raid lasted under five minutes 17 people were killed, including six children.
Thankfully, Sherborne School was comparatively unscathed, although six bombs fell on the School playing fields putting the Upper out of action for the rest of the season and seven bombs fell within 30 yards of Lyon House. A number of bombs fell in the Courts and outside the Carrington Buildings blasting the BSR’s roof beams from their seatings, destroying the stained glass west window in the School Chapel, and badly damaging the School Museum on the top floor of the Carrington Building.
The heroes of the day included Shirburnian Squadron Leader Peter Devitt (School House 1924-29) who led the eight RAF Spitfires that intercepted the German bombers over Sherborne, and Maude Steele, supervisor of the town’s telephone exchange, who was awarded the newly instituted George Medal for her courage and devotion to duty when, determined that the emergency services must be kept informed of the local situation, she refused to leave her post although bombs were falling all around the building.
Amongst the casualties were Annie Warren’s three children who were killed when their home at Lenthay Close sustained a direct hit, 85-year-old William Jeffery, a former school porter at Abbey House and Harper House, who was killed at his home in Hound Street, and 62-year-old Arthur Lintern, son of Jimmy Lintern who used to sell oranges at breaktime in the Courts, was killed while trimming the hedge at ‘South Hill’ in Richmond Road, the home of the School’s science master Mr Clephan Palmer.
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Posted 29 September 2025 by Sherborne School Archives