On Saturday August the 6th, 1927, a calamity struck one of the buildings on Cornhill in the City of London.

The Western Daily Press, in its edition of Monday the 8th of August, 1927. provided the following account of what happened:-

CORNHILL BUILDING COLLAPSE

SEVEN-STOREY OFFICES CRASH TO GROUND.

Strange Experience for Londoners.

A large building in the city collapsed shortly before midnight on Saturday with a crash which shook the neighbourhood of the Royal Exchange, Mansion House, and the Bank of England.

The building was that of the Commercial Union Assurance Company, which faces the side of the Royal Exchange in Cornhill.

About a third of it fell.

It adjoined the site upon which new premises are being erected for Lloyds Bank.

The caretaker the Commercial Assurance premises, who, with his wife, two young women, and a child, lived on the top floor of the threatened part of the seven storey building, were warned by the workmen of possible trouble, and left the building.

STOREY AFTER STOREY

About 11.40 the side wall of the building, which was shored up by timber, showed signs of bulging.

Then came a series of crashes like distant guns, and the tinkle of broken glass, showing that the collapse was more imminent than was at first expected.

At three minutes to twelve the watching crowd saw a curved crack appear, low down on the side wall of the building.

There was a cry of, “Stand back,” “It’s coming,” and, a moment later, the wall of the top floor broke, showing that an electric light had been left burning during the caretaker’s hurried departure.

There was a flash as the light fused.

IT SHOOK THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

Then the lower part of the building seemed to settle, and, with a prolonged roar, the whole place fell.

The watchers saw one storey after another collapse on to the one below, then a dense cloud of dust arose, blotting out the building from sight.

The crash shook the whole neighbourhood.

When the dust cloud had cleared away, it was seen that a portion of the Assurance building was a complete ruin.

Some of the debris lay in the road, but the premises seemed mainly to have settled down on their own foundations.

LIKE A BOMB STRUCK

The appearance of Cornhill yesterday was that of a bomb-struck street.

It was as if some gigantic force had cleaved right through the building, leaving the whole seven storeys bared to the public gaze.

PEOPLE KEPT BACK

Thousands of people who flocked to the place were kept back by the police.

Nothing was done to the building yesterday, when the site was visited by officials of the insurance company.

BUILDING COLLAPSES
CRASH WHICH SHOOK MANSION HOUSE ARE
ATRAFFIC DISORGANISED

The Hull Daily Mail, on the same day, provided a glimpse of the scene in the area:-

LONDON, Monday.

At midnight on Saturday the seven-storey building of the Commercial Union Assurance Company, Ltd., Cornhill, London, collapsed with a crash which shook the whole neighbourhood in the vicinity of the Royal Exchange, Mansion House, and the Bank of England.

The building adjoins the site upon which new premises are being erected for Lloyd’s Bank.

ALL NIGHT WATCH IN CITY.

Watch was kept throughout the night on the building, and precautions were taken so that any sign of a further subsidence or threatened collapse could be noticed once, but fortunately, up to ten o’clock this morning, there had only been a slight fall of stonework on the Change-alley side of the “danger zone.”

LIKE A WAR ZONE

Cornhill presented today a vivid reminder of what a shelled and bombed town looked like in the war, writes a Press Association representative.

In addition to the wrecked building, deep trenches had been dug in the roadway to allow gas and water mains to be inspected, and the usually trim thoroughfare was a mass of debris.

The offices of the Commercial Union Assurance Company, with crumpled walls and floors, and twisted girders exposed to view, had the appearance of shell-torn building.

TRAFFIC CHAOS

With the closing of Cornhill, the traffic problem in the neighbourhood of the Bank was considerably increased.

Threadneedle-street, overcrowded at the best of times, was congested and the police were faced with a very difficult task.

All traffic entering the City through the Aldgate bottle neck was diverted along Gracechurch-street and Cannon-street.

So heavy was the traffic along these streets, during the busy morning hours, that to travel from Aldgate to the Mansion House by bus, normally a five-minute journey, took one hour.

BARRIERS KEEP BACK CROWD

Large numbers of people stood in drenching rain during the morning watching the operations of the road workers.

At times the crowds were so great that special police had to be detailed to clear the area.

Barriers stretched across either end of Cornhill kept back the press of sightseers, and only those with business to transact were allowed to enter the area.

NO ONE ALLOWED IN

Employees of the Commercial Union Assurance Company and other companies in the block of offices affected were not allowed to go into the building in case of a further fall of debris.

For a time they gathered in groups and discussed the position, but were then requested to return to their homes as their services would not be required until the building bad been declared safe.

For hours, too, office-cleaners waited for permission to do their usual work in adjoining buildings, but were not allowed to do so.

The crack that appeared in the centre of the roadway of Cornhill was filled in during the night, and this morning masons were busy with mortar, filling in small fissures in the stonework near the main entrance of the wrecked building.