Letter: Air raid shelters

Published on 23/05/2012 15:19

I’m an architect researching public air raid shelters (including workplace and institutional ones) and underground bunkers nationally but have had problems finding surviving sites in Crawley. I’d be grateful for any help from your readers on sites that they know about.

I became fascinated (my wife would say obsessed!) by them when carrying out some conservation work on a site that included them. Each one has its own story to tell once you are able to read the clues, and they’ve invariably also had a post-war life of abandonment, sealing, partial collapse and vandalism.

They are usually very dirty, wet and of course dark, and if you don’t enjoy the film “Arachnophobia” they are probably places to avoid. But I find them the most moving and eloquent of the survivals from the Second World War (and occasionally First World War) covering some of the lowest and highest points in peoples’ lives at the time.

I’d also be very interested to hear of any experiences readers had of either taking shelter during the war or playing in the abandoned shelters after the war.

Please contact me at raynerarchitects@yahoo.co.uk

Chris Rayner, Sevenoaks

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Letter: Air raid shelters

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