Air Raid Shelters


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Whilst searching for something about March St .near the Castle happened on this list in the E.P. from 15th Sept. 1939

Its titled "PUBLIC SHELTERS" .....THIRD OFFICIAL NOTTINGHAM LIST

Might be useful to some researcher one day ?

The ones that just seem to be house numbers are interesting i.e. No 58 Forest Road !

14884011500_5fe38b0108_z.jpg

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That list in #1 , must have been a supplemental list as I have just found this from a week earlier . 5th Sept 1939 And then this must be Number 2 list

Whilst searching for something about March St .near the Castle happened on this list in the E.P. from 15th Sept. 1939 Its titled "PUBLIC SHELTERS" .....THIRD OFFICIAL NOTTINGHAM LIST Might be useful

We used to wait at the gates for the girls to come in to walk though to guildford and pull them into the shelter the one near the double gates were the teachers cars used to come in then we could have

My Gran lived somewhere near the bottom of Woodborough Road when I was a nipper, could also have been one of the streets off Woodborough Road, but I have a vivid memory of the cellar in that house having RSJ's and reinforcing for use as a bomb shelter. The street/address/number is lost in the mists of time.

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My great aunt lived on Caunton ave off Ransom road and she had a shelter in the garden, as a child I used to stay with her, and play in it.

It was half buried in the soil and was made of corrugated iron. She also had some weird bits of metal that she always said was shrapnel from a bomb that had been dropped nearby.

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That list in #1 , must have been a supplemental list as I have just found this from a week earlier . 5th Sept 1939

15068714501_53ff8c4a69_o.jpg

And then this must be Number 2 list

15068800171_9327e95fba_o.jpg

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Am I right in assuming the places on the list were "tin huts" in a back garden, or something similar? There were also the bigger concrete bunker-type shelters, some of which have survived. Two in West Bridgford that I'm aware of.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.928213,-1.121812,3a,75y,244.19h,86.66t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sdipBYnNDeKdm9i-fjlvLUQ!2e0?hl=en

And one here which you can't really see, but it is there in amongst the bushes.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.936027,-1.120908,3a,75y,289.08h,90.21t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sf1xYDHjGQjK02Vq9uLudmA!2e0?hl=en

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No idea of the construction Cliff Ton but here also from the 5th Sept.1939 is a mention of shelters for sale and a list of public shelters inj Bridgford .

15068858101_617a31aca9_z.jpg

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Not all were tin huts. The people of Nottingham were lucky that we have so many caves.

Certainly the one on Mansfield Road made use of the cave system. You can still see the gated-off entrance

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Wife's aunt used to live in a bungalow next door to West Bridgford Ambulance Station. It still had an Anderson shelter in the back garden.

Just checked, and it's not visible on Google Earth unfortunately.

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I remember a couple of large public concrete shelters in Netherfield when I was a kid. One near the top of Deabill street, another one along the same road near the loco sheds. I believe there may have been another between Pearson and Hodgkinson streets but they had already been demolished, just the concrete base left. Maybe some of the other Netherfieldonians on here might have some ideas?

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I remember a big concrete one on southcliffe road Carlton opposite a row of houses called new row. and just below peggy pearson's farm.

The ludlow's who were the neighbours opposite us in Kirks Buildings had an anderson shelter in their back garden.

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We had an Anderson shelter in our back garden in Henrietta Street, Bulwell. After the war my Dad dug it out and made it into a large work shed.

There was a brick & concrete shelter in the playground of Highbury Schools, Albert Street, Bulwell.

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Anderson shelters were only any good if you had a proper garden as they were at least 50% below ground, the excavated earth being thrown over the top of the wriggly tin shelter.

In a lot of area's the coal cellars were reinforced with RSJ's held up by builders props and top off with wriggle tin. I saw dozens of them in the early 60s when I started working in folks house's. Gas meters were nearly always in the cellar.

Ellis school had two brick and concrete jobs both above ground, whilst at the corner of Nottingham Road & Lortas Road There was a large brick and concrete job that if memory serves was nearly totally underground. Another favourite in New Basford was Shippo's cellar's.

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Not all were tin huts. The people of Nottingham were lucky that we have so many caves.

Certainly the one on Mansfield Road made use of the cave system. You can still see the gated-off entrance

That's a really large one. We had a good thread on it here: http://nottstalgia.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1568

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I well remember the shelter on the corner of Nottingham Road and Lortas Road. It was part of the Chard Street gang's play domain after the war. It was pitch black inside and we used to take in candles to find our way; Spookie. For me it was made worse when I was told there were manholes down there and without any explanation as to what they were. Frightened the dinner out of me it did.

I do believe some enterprising people took the place over to set up a mushroom business in there but I don't know if it was a success.

We had an Anderson shelter in our back garden in Chard St. but I don't think it was ever put to its intended use.

There was also a public brick and concrete one on Chard St., directly opposite Liddington St and another one I believe further down the street somewhere near Chard Terrace. I recall the day when the demolition crew came around the district with a wrecking ball on a tracked machine and us kids would play chicken, seeing who dare stay inside the longest before the foreman cleared us out. (Health & Safety wasn't invented then)

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My maternal grandparents had an Anderson air raid shelter in their garden.

They lived on Middleton Street Radford & over the garden wall was Raleigh an obvious target for the luftwaffe.

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My grandad's Anderson shelter is probably still in his old back garden on Cropwell Green. He used the skills he gained in the pits and in WW1 to make a slit trench through a rockery wall into the bank of the sloping garden above, and buried the Anderson in the garden. When bombs dropped on Carlton Road the family came out to find paving stones from Carlton Road in the back garden, but they apparently heard nothing!

When I was a kid growing up on Cardale Road we had a large concrete and brick square building in the back garden which my Mum always referred to as the air-raid shelter. My Dad was converting it to a tool shed and had removed a large square section to take a window frame. Unfortunately he died, the "window" was boarded up and his tools left to rust in the darkness.

As a 7-8 year old I sometimes used to get the key and venture in amongst the cobwebs and spiders. Nothing as sad as a man's abandoned tools. They seem still very personal somehow.

I keep meaning to go back to see if the building is still there, but don't fancy knocking on the door and asking to see their back garden!

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When I lived in Kirkstead terrace under the back window of one of the houses was what we kids called a stage it was in fact a bricked up air raid shelter and when we moved high up the street to a three storey house the cellar had been re-enforced and was also used as a shelter it got me wondering how many shelters would there have been of this type and how many people would they have had in them.

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Loads of gardens must still have them...buried and covered over without realising it.

On Harry Harris's TV show he scotched myths about the Home Guard being Cpt Mannering bumblers.

These secret concrete bunkers were everywhere.. and two members were given instructions to kill local bigwigs ( Mayor etc..) in case of invasion.

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