Report - School Air Raid Shelter - Dover - 2020

[UnknownAX]

Myself and a local friend Jake thought we'd try and find something new in Dover, as I'm sure many of you are aware everyone always says "There is nothing left doable in Dover". With this in our minds, we decided to do some leg work ourselves and actually research unlike following like sheep into every tunnel in Dover as most explorers do. So late December 2020 we researched and we discovered a local WW2 cut and cover school shelter, we looked at possible routes in and found a perfect wall to jump over to gain access to the school grounds. However, now that we were in the school grounds, we had to be careful and mindful of setting any floodlights as the school is very overlooked. We thought there was a caretaker as we had previously noticed a house adjacent that seemed to have a tv on which was within the school's fence line.

According to the research we had obtained we knew the shelter was a fairly decent size as it stated that it could accommodate 285 people. Once we were inside it seemed much bigger than we first expected, so I'm not sure if they expanded it at a later date. Most of the entrances are now used by the school groundsman for their equipment as the entrances are conveniently placed, from memory I believe there were 4 or 5 entrances. Some of the walls contain mathematics equations that were nice to see 80 years on. Overall, it is just a cut and cover tunnel, but it's nice to be able to say you've done it. Many people come to visit Dover and do the tourist places which are trashed, to do something different for a change is refreshing.

Here are a few of my photos unfortunately taken with my phone as I didn't have a DSLR which I have now thankfully do to take better photos. I couldn't be bothered to go back to take photos with the DSLR so phone photos will have to do I'm afraid.

Images

 

[Natashalucy]

Always nice to see something new. Love the report

 

[Mikeymutt🐶]

Like that

 

[Calamity Jane]

Very nice. Like the chairs and old curtains. Nice to see something new. Well done.

I went to a primary school with some shelters in the playground. If we ever wandered in their direction we would be in big trouble. They werent deep shelters, more like a row of above ground ones, they may have had stairs to lower levels, I never found out. But this report has reminded me of that, and I wonder if they are still standing.

 

[UnknownAX]

Very nice. Like the chairs and old curtains. Nice to see something new. Well done.

I went to a primary school with some shelters in the playground. If we ever wandered in their direction we would be in big trouble. They werent deep shelters, more like a row of above ground ones, they may have had stairs to lower levels, I never found out. But this report has reminded me of that, and I wonder if they are still standing.

A lot of the school shelters were cut and covers, there are some which were above buildings but the vast majority were underground. It's really hit and miss whether they're still intact or not. I've spent hours walking around locations that have had air raid shelters only to find they've been demolished. There was one I went to where they built an access road up to the school, on either side of the grass banks if you look through some rabbit holes you can see inside the original concrete structures, it's all been backfilled sadly.

 

[obscurity]

Love this!! There's always more to be had from Dover for those keen enough, good to see something fresh.... Keep up the good work dude

 

[UnknownAX]

Love this!! There's always more to be had from Dover for those keen enough, good to see something fresh.... Keep up the good work dude

Oh you know it mate, I'm sick of people saying there's nothing left in Dover. Go research and find places instead of piling onto the tourbus on widely known locations.