| Communal Brick Air Raid Shelters were quite common in urban areas especially where residents had no back gardens.These brick shelters with a reinforced concrete roof of about 6 inches were normally built in roads which did not carry traffic and were notorious for people running into them at night by bike etc and on foot due to the poor visual situation imposed by the blackout control and rigidly imposed by Air Raid Wardens.Fog was an added hazard from solid fuel fires which make matters worse.They became dank places and after the war,they appeared to be the first structures to be dismantled by local government as they could not be put to much use.You would not find any newly married squatters taking up residence in these places which as shelters were devoid of windows.(Airfield domestic sites and temporary army camps were different and squatters flocked into them with the authorities unable to stop them finding accomodation.)
Those who had back gardens were issued with Anderson Shelters which were filled over with earth after the excavation which had to be done by the property occupier.The idea was sound but if the water table was high they were useless as a shelter unless the occupants stood in water.The quality of the sheeting was top class, being heavily galvanised panels curved at the top to form the roof and secured as a whole unit by galvanised nuts and bolts.Surviving shelters have been put to many uses and to their credit, the panels normally have lasted well and normally speciments can be seen with little rust after nearly 70 years. |