Report - Coulsdon Deep Shelter june 12

[monk]

Been nearly five years since i was last here with Reef & Jackal, but with nothing to do on a sunday afternoon and not being a million miles away i thought id pay another visit while its still open.

Cheers to Reef for the reminder as to where the entrance actually was, saved me a wet hike around the woods :

History lifted from.........
TheTimeChamber

Around the time of WW2 Surrey County Council commissioned the building of four deep shelters, Coulsdon Deep Shelter was the fourth. After the war, the shelter was purchased by Cox, Hargreaves and Thomson, Limited who specialised in the manufacture of optical devices - mainly lenses for huge telescopes. They purchased the tunnels as it provided the ideal atmosphere for the production of the lenses - a constant temperature meant that they did not expand or contract during the grinding process. However, the main drawback of the tunnels was the cold and damp conditions within them, this played havoc with corroding equipment and the moral of the workforce. To combat this, the company brought a refrigerator and wired it backwards so that it could act as a crude air-conditioning unit.

Cox, Hargreaves and Thomson finally left the tunnels in the early 70s and the company subsequently wound up in 1978. After this they were used as a garage for a small length of time, but abandoned again because of the same problems faced by Cox, Hargreaves and Thomson. It was the later used as a dump for old VW car parts and the tunnels were then sealed by the local council.

Anways a few pics