Lives of the First World War

On the evening of September 25, 1916, the German Zeppelin L21, commanded by Obeleutnant Kurt Frankenburg, was spotted off the coast of Lincolnshire before it headed over Yorkshire and into Lancashire, where it followed the tracks of the East Lancashire Railway line along the Rossendale Valley. The Rossendale Free Press reported that the first incendiary bomb fell shortly after the Zeppelin passed over Seat Naze at Newchurch. It fell in the grounds of Heightside House, but failed to ignite. Heightside House was the home of the his mother's family and the bomb is currently on display in Whittaker Park Museum, Rossendale. (H.H. Bolton on the display case refers to Margaret Alice Bolton's father Henry Hargreaves Bolton J.P. b. 1857)