# Air Raid Shelter - A Major UK Town - Nov 2012



## UE-OMJ (Nov 21, 2012)

4 traffic cones, some red/white ribbon tape, 2 drain lifting keys, some hi-vis jackets and a rainy day... Perfect for getting into an underground air raid shelter  This wasnt an 'after dark' explore but in broad daylight - well it would have been if it wasnt winter 

It's been said before but you can get away with so much in plain sight if you look like you're supposed to be working in the area.

I didnt want to name this location, I know many of you will recognise the place but can you please not put the name on the report. Thanks.

Visited with UrbanX, a very enjoyable evening I must say. Even though there's not much down there to see, except for UrbanX mincing up and down in the dark swinging his torch about   it was still a great explore with much adrenaline. The entrance/exit made the explore for us. And I learned lots about taking photos in the pitch dark.

Anyway, on with the pics...


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Yep, thats the way in! If you look for this place on Google Earth you can just about make out the red arrow on the pavement 









Hmm, very dark down here. Glad I bought a few extra torches...








...and some glow sticks 















Dunno what that once was, but I think it's broken now...


















These were the original extrances but are long since sealed over. Probably part of a main road now...























The most flimsy/decayed wood ever, these chairs cant be moved or they would fall to bits.








Stalagtites...








This looks like a gooey lump on the floor but is actually the start of a stalagmite. I'll have to pop back in a 
few hundred years and see how it's doing 




























I think we're lost... Better start looking for the way out soon...






































Ah ha, thats the ladder to the way out...








And it's well rusty...













One more...






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I really hope UrbanX has a video or two ready (maybe later?) and his pics as I know they will be much better than mine. Especially the torch swinging ones as I didn’t get any of those 



Thanks for UrbanX's company, and thanks for looking 

.


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## UrbanX (Nov 21, 2012)

Before I start, can I just ask that if anyone does know where this is: not to publish it below. It’s in such good condition, if it were in the public domain it would deteriorate so quickly. 

So, OMJ and I were chatting and both knew of a deep shelter in this city. So naturally decided to pay a visit. We had located it, and there was a manhole cover exactly where it should have been. The problem comes the access… 

We hatched a plan that was as brazen as it was audacious. Even on the way there we weren’t sure if we had the balls to do it. But minutes later we arrived, in a white van, in hi vis. We started setting up cones. It was busy, really busy. We were trying not to shoot each other nervous looks. But straight away people were just walking round our little cordon, just listening to their iPods not paying any attention. Our confidence immediately grew, just in time for us to realise we’d just closed off a busy city centre….

For obvious reasons we didn’t have time to set up and take photo’s, but heres a screen grab of the video, which will be out soon. 






I’d imagined it to be fairy deep - it’s called a deep shelter. So I was disappointed to climb down 15ft or so onto a solid concrete floor. Aww. Hang on…there’s another ladder down…and another. If you look closely you can see further ladders through the hole. 






We descended down the rusty ladder, hearing the street noise disappear, along with the faint orange glow of the street lights, until we hit the stale musty airless vacuum at the bottom. We were about 40m below the surface.

We walked and walked. We took so many right angle turns , I had completely lost my bearings. Corridors just seemed endless and anonymous. 






We came to a dead end, which led up top two staircases, both blocked off. 

We made our way back through the complex, passing where we’d come in, and heading in the opposite direction. Again we walked, and walked. It went on for what seemed like miles, before we were met with two stair routes up to the surface at 90 degrees apart. Each one had several flights. 










_Twin Stairscases_






At the top was a ladder leading to a manhole. I climbed to the top and could just about get GPS on my phone, so took a pin of where we were for later. I was tempted to give the cover a good shunt, but could hear traffic noise from above so thought better of it. 






We carried on walking the legs of tunnels:










_UE-OMJ_

There wasn’t much by way of artefact, but every now and then you’d find pockets like this:





After we were out I done a route between our access and the other manhole, and the sat nav claimed they were 1.1 miles apart (driving, not as the crow flies) I wish I could have got a ’pin’ at the other end to see how big the whole thing would have been. 
















After we had all the pics we wanted we headed back towards our access. It was comforting hearing the traffic getting louder, as each lungful of air seemed fresher and fresher. I emerged first as I wanted to film OMJ emerging, and was rumbled straight away. I broke into our cover story of doing a drainage survey, but the neighbour, knew exactly what we were up to. We chatted for 5, and he was overly friendly, confessing he’d always wanted to go down! 

Massive thanks to OMJ for the company…and the cones  

Proper video to follow, but here's OMJ emerging! 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdzDCiNlysI[/ame]


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## Ramsgatonian (Nov 21, 2012)

Nice location! Believe it or not, I've actually seen the beginnings of stalagmites in Millennium Mills!


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## ROUGE TROOPER (Nov 21, 2012)

Awesome report! Love it!


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## steve2109 (Nov 21, 2012)

Nice work you two, was hoping for an old war room,telephones and little planes on sticks ! Nice pictures as well thanks for sharing


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## flyboys90 (Nov 21, 2012)

Lucky lads what a find,superb report thanks for sharing both.


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## PaulPowers (Nov 21, 2012)

Brilliant stuffs 

I don't recognize this one so I'm guessing it's not northern


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## chris (Nov 21, 2012)

Tremendous guys  Deeper than I'd imagined


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## night crawler (Nov 21, 2012)

Great stuff guys, shame our Fluffy never knew about it.


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## Scaramanger (Nov 21, 2012)

Nice one.... Any idea what it was intended for ?


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## Harry (Nov 21, 2012)

Being seen is unseen? Who would have thought hey! Top stuff, thanks for sharing!


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## PROJ3CTM4YH3M (Nov 22, 2012)

Great report this place looks awesome! I need to do a decent underground one  love all the rust on the banisters well covered with the shot


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## Bones out (Nov 22, 2012)

You crazy kids 

Bit jealous, if I'm honest....... 

Fab stuff, I love it.


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## John_D (Nov 22, 2012)

Great find and superb report and pics from both of you  (looking forward to the video )


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## darbians (Nov 22, 2012)

That's some balls! And the stalagmite looks like an egg


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## Carlh (Nov 22, 2012)

wow, stunning - thanks for sharing


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## corollaboyzz (Nov 22, 2012)

Great report and Pictures, thanks for sharing, so want to find something like this!


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## UrbanX (Nov 22, 2012)

Cheers for comments guys! 



114 072 22 said:


> Nice one.... Any idea what it was intended for ?



It would have been an air raid shelter in the war. By the size of it, it would have held thousands.


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## wherever i may roam (Nov 22, 2012)

Ace find...


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## perjury saint (Nov 22, 2012)

*Excellent work you two!!*


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## Andymacg (Nov 22, 2012)

cracking work you pair


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## John_D (Nov 22, 2012)

Did you nip in for a celebratory Ruby Murray before going home?


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## scribble (Nov 22, 2012)

Brilliant pair of reports. I like the fried egg stalagmite too.


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## zender126 (Nov 22, 2012)

Looks awesome!
Well done on the access


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## Timmy (Nov 22, 2012)

awesome work here guys... rumours have it that another big shelter has been discovered in plymouth aswell... some mint artefacts in there aswell...  with a few more surprises  lets just say i cant wait to get back down again!


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## krela (Nov 22, 2012)

There must be hundreds of these still dotted around city centres all over the country. I know there are still at least 3 or 4 underneath Bristol.


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## Timmy (Nov 22, 2012)

krela said:


> There must be hundreds of these still dotted around city centres all over the country. I know there are still at least 3 or 4 underneath Bristol.



road trip to bristol then?


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## krela (Nov 22, 2012)

Timmy said:


> road trip to bristol then?



If you want to waste your time trying to get in them.


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## UEP-Wales (Nov 22, 2012)

Great stuff guys! Really interesting report!

I've been meaning to research what's beneath our cities for a long time now, both given a little bit of inspiration


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## Timmy (Nov 22, 2012)

krela said:


> If you want to waste your time trying to get in them.



you setting me a challenge?  one i recently got into was a challenge... amazing that tri-pods have more than one use...


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## UE-OMJ (Nov 22, 2012)

Cheers for all the positive comments/replies  I really appreciate it, especially as I wasnt sure how well this site would go down on here.

Thanks everyone


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## PaulPowers (Nov 23, 2012)

Timmy said:


> you setting me a challenge?



Guardian Tunnels Manchester

I've been trying for years, even went down legit routes and got no where


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## TonyUK72 (Nov 23, 2012)

Brilliant report, cheers guy's. BALLS of STEEL on the entry.


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## Pen15 (Nov 23, 2012)

As always, a great pair of reports. Well done !!!


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## UrbanX (Nov 23, 2012)

krela said:


> There must be hundreds of these still dotted around city centres all over the country. I know there are still at least 3 or 4 underneath Bristol.



True as, OMJ has just located some more, looks like the cones are going to get another outing!


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## cogito (Nov 23, 2012)

Goood find! It's surprising how many air raid shelters are still about and accessible via lids, saying that the last one I did was a heavy split lid that from below we had no choice but to leave open and fenced off. All part of the fun


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## richy 2 times (Nov 24, 2012)

thats a great report fellas,exactly the type of thing i like.


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## UE-OMJ (Nov 24, 2012)

Here's a quick video from me. No clever editing, no music, no adjustments at all. Just raw and how it was down there 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVrzukOYPso[/ame]


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## UrbanX (Nov 24, 2012)

Great to see it dude! It's so easy to see the pics and think its all dry and well lit! 
Great work!


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## UrbanX (Nov 26, 2012)

Right, here's the video! 

If you ever question why we drive hundreds of miles after no sleep, to crawl down stinky holes... hopefully you'll find this inspirational. Dunno, these explores just seems to capture the spirit of urbex for me....

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChpB6BQoQM8[/ame]


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## UE-OMJ (Nov 26, 2012)

Brilliant, I didnt realise you video'd as much as you did  I'm gonna have to watch that again...


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## UEP-Wales (Nov 26, 2012)

Great video dude! Really does look like a great explore!


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## John_D (Nov 27, 2012)

Well worth waiting for Lee


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## Ratters (Nov 27, 2012)

Excellent


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## Wantage Will (Nov 29, 2012)

Brill . Sooo nice n clean. Sends shivers up me spine looking at the pics. Bloody good pics to. Any idea when it was built n closed. I presume ww2.
Smashing explore guys. And brill the way you put them cones out & dropped in .


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## Chris34 (Nov 29, 2012)

Just Brilliant!!


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