Report - Coulsdon Deep Shelter - Surrey - August 2013

Gabe · Aug 12, 2013

History

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.

Massive thanks to Soylent Green with this one.

I must say, this is my first proper effort with being in somewhere pitch black and trying to take pictures with a torch for light, honestly not happy with the effort and cant say i'm the biggest fan of having to use a torch to light inside somewhere. I tried
though, be gentle everyone.