Report - WW2 Air Raid Bunker - Wigan

[Nyrian]

The only history I could find out was that the bunkers were air raid shelters for the workers at the Rylands Mill which is next to them. There has been a report of them before:


Report - - Mesnes Park WW2 Bunker - March 2014 | Underground Sites


but I still saw a few reports of visits despite this article back in 2017 saying the council were sealing it up:


Wigan's World War II tunnels are closed for good


So we went to verify. This now seems to be concreted up and very disappointing as it looked very good. We searched around as someone said they'd heard of a tunnel heading towards the actual park. But after digging through the basement of Rylands Mill we found no other possible entrance. If you know of one or find a blueprint let me know and we'll be happy to try again.

 

[Parysperspective]

Shame! Pesky concrete.

 

[Shadoway]

There’s still tunnels in under the mill, you’ve got to do a lot of looking around for them though. Split off in 3 directions once you’re in but they’re all blocked off within ~25m.

 

[Nyrian]

There’s still tunnels in under the mill, you’ve got to do a lot of looking around for them though. Split off in 3 directions once you’re in but they’re all blocked off within ~25m.

We thought we'd done the whole basement? There's a hole through the wall by the lift. Is it worth going back to look or is it only corridors to the bunker and the bunker itself is still sealed?

 

[Shadoway]

We thought we'd done the whole basement? There's a hole through the wall by the lift. Is it worth going back to look or is it only corridors to the bunker and the bunker itself is still sealed?

Bunkers are sealed as far as we could tell. Tunnel is in the basement there’s about a 2 ft hole in the floor/wall to get in, can’t remember a lift it was a while ago. They’re just small cramped brick tunnels with what looks like some ventilation gates or something in them and only go for about 20m each way.

 

[porky pig]

few years ago now. its been sealed for about 3 years