PillBlogs: Norbury air raid shelter

Something that has been annoying me of late is what I believe to be a Public Surface Air Raid Shelter beside the railway line just south of Norbury Station (Croydon), which has defied all attempts to photograph it from a train moving at 80 mph.

As I was treating myself to a day out up in London today, I decided to check it out on the ground at 0 mph in order to try and positively identify it; I had a One-day Travelcard ticket which allowed me to hop off the London train at East Croydon and get a local service to Norbury.

After a brisk walk back along Norbury Avenue and a right turn down Manor Farm Road (Ordnance Survey grid reference TQ 311 694 - View Multimap), I came across the structure in an area of what appeared to be parkland, although the gate was padlocked.

Made of brick with a concrete slab for a roof, I'm now 99% certain it's an air raid shelter; it's like no public utility building (e.g. water pumping station or electricity sub-station) I've ever seen. The local railway architecture is generally plate-layer huts built of sleepers, or more elaborate brick art deco signal boxes and the like.*

The proximity (and level) of the railway is shown by the train in the photo below; a train can be seen just above the roof, behind the trees.

As can be seen from the photos, the structure has no windows, but any that did exist could have been bricked up, as I was unable to locate a door (even a bricked-up one). The thing is, I have never seen any building (other than an air raid shelter) as long and narrow as this; the ventilation holes remind me of the shelter at my primary school, demolished in 1995.

The other point of note is that Public Surface Shelters were generally constructed for the benefit of those who had no garden in which to erect an Anderson Shelter, or a basement to strengthen, but the presence of various pieces of rusty Anderson sections lying at the bottom of the gardens that back onto the railway line (if anyone out there has a complete Anderson or parts in reasonable [not too rusty] condition for sale, please let me know!) indicate that the locals were already catered for, and it's not as if the shelter is in an area where employees in local businesses would have needed to take cover during office hours.

If you have any information on this particular structure, please post a response; and if you were one of the passers-by who were straining to see what it was I was photographing so keenly in that patch of wasteland where that shabby old eyesore of a brick shed stands, now you know!

If it is a surface shelter, how many others still stand? Are these structures rare, and do they warrant some sort of conservational protection? If you know of any, again, please post a response!

*On the subject of railway architecture, as part of a 3-year (so far) ongoing project to expand this site in a novel way, I was also out taking photographs of art deco buildings today; shown below are the uplighters on the escalators and frontage of Southgate Underground Station (Picadilly Line), designed by Charles Holden in 1933. The only thing I know about art deco is that I love it!

- Pete

Response posted by < Perkie > on 24 June 2006 at 11:00

Hello, I do know that there are two brick air raid shelters in the gardens on the west side of the Pavilion, Westover road, Bournemouth, also I am not certain whether the building at the far end of the cemetry at Charminster in Bournemouth. It's at the far end of the cemetry at a road junction, it also has a ornate shelter on the pavement side. I could be wrong it, could be something to do with the old trolley bus system.

Response posted by < anonymous > on 23 January 2007 at 21:57

hi i have an origanal anderson shelter in my back garden in prety good condition i was wondering if you had any idea how much it is worth?

Response posted by < Pete > on 24 January 2007 at 20:00

Value would depend on condition, the presence of all original panels (Andersons were frequently dug up and converted into sheds after the war - the end panels were often modified or replaced), and the potential for damage during dismantling.

I often see shelters available for nominal sums such as £1 because the owner wants a rusting eyesore physically excavated and removed from their garden by the buyer.

If the shelter isn't dug in or concreted, then you could probably charge more of a 'collectables' sum; this would depend entirely on what a buyer would be willing to pay for it though.

If your Anderson is in East Sussex, then please send me an email (my email address can be found at: www.nbcd.org.uk).

- Pete

Response posted by < anonymous > on 24 January 2007 at 20:55

Unfortunately my Anderson shelter is in Liverpool it was dug up about 40 years ago and has been used as a garden shed ever since. It has been bricked up at one end and has a wooden door at the other it has painted repeatedly over the years by my grandparents. Due to extension of the house it has to go in your opinion would it be worth advertising? as our original plan was to skip it.

-Dawn

Response posted by < Pete > on 24 January 2007 at 21:29

It may well be worth putting it on an internet auction site and seeing how much you get - if the buyer only has to collect the shelter (and not dig it out for you), then somebody may be willing to pay a little more for it.

Again, I wouldn't expect much, but if you get a few interested bidders, you never know!

- Pete

Response posted by < Alan > on 26 January 2007 at 20:28

We had an air-raid shelter similar to the one at Norbury but obviously smaller in our back garden at Reading. The neighbours had one, too, and they were built as if they were semi-detached. We had a common entrance with the neighbours (which gave access to both back gardens) and you turned right inside to ours and left to theirs. The walls were three or four bricks thick and the only ventilation was via the tiny holes in the wall that you can see in your photo. These did not go straight through, but zigzaged through the interior brickwork. There were no windows (to avoid them being blown in!)It was almost totally dark inside. I think we only used it once, or at the most twice. Reading got very little bombing despite its relative proximity to London. The shelters were still there in 1978. I haven't been back since. It would take a bulldozer to knock them down!

Response posted by < Pete > on 27 January 2007 at 21:10

Thanks Alan - very interesting!

I've been emailed a photo of a much smaller brick shelter in a garden just along from the Norbury shelter.

Your 'bulldozer' comment is relevant, as I expect surviving shelters are those that would defy light demolition attempts.

However, due to a potentially disastrous error arising out of efforts to conserve cement stocks, many of these brick shelters were built with a woefully inadequate mortar mix resulting in shelters that would collapse with little provocation.

From memory, I believe most of these were in Manchester/Liverpool, with a few in London and also Coventry.

I'm going to write a new post to include some new photos and info, so watch this space!

- Pete

Response posted by < Marla > on 31 January 2007 at 18:48

My parents have an air radi shelter like the one in your photo in their back garden. We live in a terrace house in Kensal Green. I haven't seen one like it in any of the gardens in the area. It's shared with the next door house. Since the nieghbours passed away, an estate agent asked if we would be interested in demolishing it. I'd be sad to see it go. Plus, not sure how easy it would be to demolish with a solid concrete roof!

Response posted by < Pete > on 01 February 2007 at 07:39

Thanks for that Marla.

It would be a pity if the shelter went, and, as you say, hopefully the problems of demolition would provide a reprieve!

As London was not so affected by the mortar scandal I mentioned above, it may be that your shelter is of substantial construction.

- Pete

Response posted by < Nal > on 04 May 2007 at 07:49

Hi, i've recently bought a house in wolverhampton and it has an air raid shelter at the bottom of the garden how do i either convert it to something pretty or useable or remove it, without it being expensive

Response posted by < jane > on 01 June 2007 at 23:03

hi we live in donnington telford close to the mod base, we have a brick air raid shelter at the bottom of our garden with a concrete roof tried to find more information about it to no avail. Apparantly it was built to house the whole street. We are looking to convert do you know if mortar scandal affected this area? It looks sound enough?

Hibbs, Peter PillBlogs: Norbury air raid shelter (2010) Available at: http://www.pillbox.org.uk/pillblogs/detail.asp?ID=25 Accessed: 30 July 2010