THE York blitz began 80 years ago today - and the anniversary of the city’s first targeted bombing raid marks the start of a two-year heritage project about residents’ experiences during the Second World War.

The project, called ‘Raids Over York,’ will include walking trails, the unveiling of plaques, public exhibitions and other commemorative events across 2020-22.

Each of ten individual targeted-bombing raids on York between August 11,1940 – when the first bomb landed in York Cemetery, with shrapnel damaging gravestones– and the last raid on September 24, 1942, will be relived in ‘real time’ on social media.

Personal reminiscences have been collected from people who were children at the time, covering everything from the delight of an Acomb schoolboy in discovering Poppleton Road School had been bombed overnight, meaning his summer holidays had come early, to a young mother in labour during a raid in the Burton Stone area who arrived at a local shelter with her new-born baby.

Information is available on a website: www.raidsoveryork.co.uk, which draws upon archival research, including newspapers such as The Press, and an interactive digital map showing the location of bomb craters and shelters will be rolled out later in the year.

Local history enthusiast Nick Beilby said: ‘We’ve been delighted by the response. People have contacted us with their knowledge of concrete air-raid shelters in Heworth; bomb craters in Clifton Backies; dispersal pens on Clifton Moor, which was then known as RAF Clifton, and scarring from shrapnel damage to properties across the city.”

Duncan Marks, of York Civic Trust, said: “We hope the project encourages people to get out and about and explore forgotten WW2 heritage: to spot air-raid shelters standing in terrace backyards or bomb craters on the city’s strays.”