Shortly before the outbreak of war, the possibility of the City being severely bombed had to be considered. Many plans were closely examined and various properties inspected, but none offered anything like the space necessary for 20,000 people employed in the market, and accommodation for about 5,000 people.
A Member of the Committee suggested Pinewood Film Studios situated in Buckinghamshire. It was large enough to meet Lloyd’s requirements and acceptable to the Government which, by that time, had stressed the necessity of large businesses to evacuating within a specified range of London.
It was therefore decided that the Lloyd's Policy Signing Office and some other staff offices would be evacuated. And so, the Committee agreed to a lease of the Club and Administration Block on a year’s option. A staff of nearly 500, mostly women, were instructed to arrange to move during the weekend before business opened on Monday 4 September, 1939. Everyone arrived that Monday morning for duty and found a seat, a “desk” and individual typewriters or books ready for work to commence.
A.R.P. arrangements were also necessary and as soon as war was declared, a Lloyd's Pinewood Fire Guard was formed. At first there were no adequate shelters, and it is interesting to note that the initial instructions were for the staff to disperse into the surrounding woods on an air raid warning being sounded, or to remain in the ground floor rooms and corridors. With time, trenches were dug and a conversion of a ditch, which ran through the Club gardens, was turned into an air raid shelter, sufficient to accommodate over 400 people. It was affectionately christened “Bill Allder’s Underground”.
At the end of the war, the Committee of Lloyd’s organised a farewell Christmas party to Pinewood. For the first and last time, staff saw the ballroom at Pinewood cleared of all office equipment.
“So much for Pinewood; years hence when the place is just a memory, some of its more pleasing sides may be remembered and more fully appreciated. Its spaciousness and sunshine, the brilliant hued maples around the lake in autumn, the giant cedars weighed down by snow in mid winter, or the riot of colour produced by the rhododendrons in full bloom in June – meanwhile, an end to evacuation and its many problems as we say a lighthearted “farewell to Pinewood”. (Lloyd’s Log – Volume XVI, April 1946).
