British United Shoe Machinery air raid shelter - Leicester - June '08

[Mr Sam]

well well well id heard about some vast shelter/tunnels under united shoe and been gagging to find out more about them or even get inside them

so today mattdonut, goldie87 and myself payed the site another visit to check out the water tower and a few more buildings, well while looking for something to use as a ladder to get up the tower we stumbled across something else

with little perswasion i jumped straight down into the gloomy dark 'oi pass us me bag i need a torch' well that was no use as it was propperly dark down there, once we had organised a way of climbing back out the others joined me and we progressed into the darkness

theres store shelves in every little room and annex and some old signs painted onto the wall, nice heavy old doors one had a diagram of the air ventilation system on it

after a few trips round we worked out that the lights still work too which was handy :)

i know it doesnt look a great deal but its been along time coming :D

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[Goldie87]

After hearing about these a while ago it was good to finally confirm that they do exist! There were a lot of newish looking fire exit signs and light fittings, however turned the lights on and evidently they had been there a while as only half worked properly. Guessing the last time anyone went down there was sometime in the 90's. Shame its been cleared out and all the ventilation plant has gone, but still an excellent find for us!

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g16/rt06/National%20Shoe%20Machinery/us49.jpg

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