Surprise find at the bottom of garden
James Prestidge was anticipating a weekend of heavy digging to sort out his Bedminster garden – but he ended up unearthing more than he bargained for…
BEDMINSTER bank worker James Prestidge had resolved to sort out his garden this spring. There would be a lot of heavy spadework to bring it all to the same level.
“There was a certain area that I’d not yet touched. I took an old shed there down and was about to finish for the day but thought to myself ‘I’ll just start on this little area …’
“I found a bit of concrete with this corrugated finish and thought, what have we here?
“I was partly nervous about it, but half of me was also quite excited, curious.”
As he excavated more, and was increasingly relieved that he’d not unearthed gas- or water mains, he was informed by his neighbour’s daughter: “That’s an Anderson shelter”.
Many BT readers will know all about them; the oldest among you might well have slept in one during WW2. Some of you will, like James, have found yourselves wondering what to do with the remnants – usually just the brick or concrete base – of a shelter in your garden.
The Anderson Shelter was designed in the late 1930s and so named for the government minister, Sir John Anderson, who was responsible for preparation for air raids in the coming war that everyone anticipated.
The shelters were issued free from 1939 to householders who did not have basements, but who did have gardens in which they could be erected, and who did not earn above a certain level of income. Large numbers were also bought by more well-to-do householders.
Andersons came in kit form. They were basically just sheds made of corrugated steel and which could be easily assembled. The idea was to sink half the height of it below ground level, and cover the top with at least 15 inches of soil, or with sandbags.
Many owners anticipated erected their shelters on brick and/or concrete foundations, as seems to have been the case in James Prestidge’s garden.
They were generally good enough to protect those taking refuge inside from anything except a direct hit from a high explosive bomb.
You’ll find plenty of stories from the Blitz of families surviving inside their Anderson shelter while their home, a few yards away, was demolished.
They may have been life-savers, but they were no fun to be in. Bristol suffered six major raids over the winter of 1940-41, but there were air raid warnings on many other nights, and some families chose to sleep in their shelters regardless – during one of the coldest winters in living memory.
During the post-war austerity years, many owners used them as garden sheds, sometimes digging them out of the soil so they were at ground level. Technically, they were still government property in cases where they had been issued free, but BT is not aware of anyone ever getting into trouble over this, or being asked to give their shelter back.
A few shelters still exist around the country, and there are, as in James’s case, many more remnants.
He is now pondering what to do with it: “It could maybe make a very small plunge pool, or I could have a hot tub in it. Or a pond or perhaps some sort of planter for flowers.
“All I know is that I really don’t want to take the sledgehammer to it and destroy it.” If any BT readers have any suggestions as to how James can make the best use of his historic concrete, let us know.
As always, we welcome readers’ memories and stories, so if you have any tales to tell, get in touch. And if anyone still has an intact Anderson shelter in their garden, please mail us a photo or two!