Air Raid Shelter at 68 Woodlands Park Road, c1967

Comment by Maddy on January 9, 2020 at 14:27

Still one of these a couple of doors up from me - I can see it from the back upstairs window.

Comment by David Parnell on January 9, 2020 at 23:47

These things are pieces of history and should be preserved as such. My father and his family ( 2 adults and 4 teenagers) at 29 Elsden Road Tottenham spent every night during the blitz huddled in one of these as shrapnel from anti aircraft fire rained down and bombs/mines of every variety fell all around them.

My father is now 96 years of age but in years gone by he told me of whole families he knew of being wiped out by direct hits from bombs. He still maintained how much safer they all felt in the Anderson shelter though in reality it was only a few curved sheets of corrugated steel!

When my final surviving Grandmother moved out of the house due to ill health in 1986 the Anderson was still being used to store garden tools. Painted green at the time I still have fond memories of it and the potential tales it could have told

Comment by David watts 13 hours ago

Wouldn't these have been covered with tons of earth when they were being used in WW2 ?

Comment by Gordon T 12 hours ago

Yes:

"When installed underground, they were buried 1.2 metres (4 ft) deep in the soil and then covered with a minimum of 38 centimetres (15 in) of soil above the roof." [Wikipedia].

But post 1945, and re-excavated after only a few years underground, it's an example of 'repurposing' [as I believe is now said].

[Anecdotage - my mid-Kent primary school (there 1957- 1962) had a substantial brick-built + thick concrete-roofed air raid shelter still in existence when I attended. Was on the route to London...].

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