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Anderson Shelter/garden Hut


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On an allotment at Crosspool. There were lots of them to be seen in gardens when I was young.

My granddad had an air raid shelter / garden hut like this at the bottom of his garden. It was a wide one like this. Most of them were narrower.

Like this:

Picture from junipergreencc.org.uk

Perhaps it was adapted to make it wider by adding an extra flat piece of corrugated iron into the roof after the war.

Designed to be partially buried then covered over with a mound of earth.

Picture from miliblog.co.uk

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There's at least one on Hangingwater allotments, and one still in situ in a garden near Broomhill, visible from near the top of Parkers Lane (unfortunately Google's car didn't go all the way to the top!)

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In the post war, pre 1962 gale prefabs on the Arbourthorne each prefab had one of these huts outside in the back garden, totally above ground level like the one vox's granddad had. the sheds were secure lockable but had no windows or lighting so were dark when the door was closed.

The purpose of them for the prefabs was as both a garden shed and a coal bunker, - the bottom half furthest from the door being fenced off internally for the storage of coal, delivered weekly by a local coal merchant.

Being made of 2 thin asbestos sheets packed with wood shaving between for insulation the prefabs were notoriously cold in winter and only had a small coal fire in the living room. Having a flat roof and only being about 8 or 9 feet tall, most of the heat went straight up the chimney. There was a ducted central heating system from the fire to warm the 2 bedrooms, but this was ineffective and frequently delivered more soot than heat into the rooms. We frequently used electrical heaters or paraffin heaters, common at the time, for winter heating in other rooms. We also used a lot of coal in cold weather hence the need for such a large coal shed.

As the prefabs were built during and immediately after the war the use of Anderson shelters in this was a very clever use of surplus wartime resources

An Anderson coal shed can be seen outside this prefab


Also 2 of them can be made out in the back gardens of the 2 prefabs, behind and to the left of the dog





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My parents and grandparents lived through the war and that's how I know what they are.

Yes they did originally have corrugated ends but I assume they were unearthed and modified into huts after the war ended.

Friends of mine have one in their garden which is still partially below ground. It too has had it's ends bricked up and a proper door put in. They use it as a cool store. I'll get a photo next time I'm round there.

I'd imagine it must have had a fair amount of work done on it at some point, otherwise you'd expect it to have rotted away below ground level.

EDIT:

Excellent website - everything we need to know.

Anderson shelters

Includes the official Home Office 1939 instructions for the construction of Anderson shelters.

"The corrugated iron roofs of most of the shelters were collected by the authorities at the end of the war. Others were sold to the householders for £1 each. These were often dug up and re-erected above ground, fitted with proper wooden doors and used as workshops or garden sheds."

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My parents and grandparents lived through the war and that's how I know what they are.

Yes they did originally have corrugated ends but I assume they were unearthed and modified into huts after the war ended.

Friends of mine have one in their garden which is still partially below ground. It too has had it's ends bricked up and a proper door put in. They use it as a cool store. I'll get a photo next time I'm round there.

I'd imagine it must have had a fair amount of work done on it at some point, otherwise you'd expect it to have rotted away below ground level.

EDIT:

Excellent website - everything we need to know.

Anderson shelters

Includes the official Home Office 1939 instructions for the construction of Anderson shelters.

"The corrugated iron roofs of most of the shelters were collected by the authorities at the end of the war. Others were sold to the householders for £1 each. These were often dug up and re-erected above ground, fitted with proper wooden doors and used as workshops or garden sheds."

My maternal grandparents lived in a large house on the Sutton Estate, Wadsley, with their family. Their Anderson shelter was still in use as a small workshop well into the 1970's at least.

It was the slightly larger variant with the infill panels inserted in the roof to provide a bit more room. After the war it was dug up and erected on a concrete base with brick end walls with a small window in the back and a wooden door in the front. My bachelor uncle used to rebuild his Austin Seven engines in there. It had a very dodgy electrical supply and a small coke stove for heating.

In the early fifties many of the bomb sites in the city were fenced off with curious corrugated steel sheets with the top edge cut at an acute angle. When placed together to make a fence these had a sawtooth appearance. At least we know now where the council got them from.

HD

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There was defiantly one in the garden of a house off Newlands Road or Drive Intake. It might still be there, you could see it from Mansfield Road footpath. A rockery was built around it. It was a very nice garden too.

It was many years ago when I last saw it though.

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On 09/06/2014 at 19:50, andy1702 said:

The wide variant shelters are interesting because I think the extra panel in the roof must be a post-war addition. If you think about it, the weight of all that earth piled on top of a flat piece of corrugared tin would not have been a very strong place to hide. This type of tin panneling seems to ahve been very common though. I seem to remember a lot of garages (and some wartime prefabs) being made out of similar stuff.

I remember watching my father and our neighbour duly digging out the rectangular pit for the newly delivered Anderson  shelter at the beginning of the war. Andy1702 is right, there was no flat roof panel. Junipergreens picture shows exactly what the centre was like. The back was three plain panels. The front had a chamfered panel each side with two bridge panels. The lower one was from memory something like 30" deep and the upper one about 12".

The instructions called for a pit the same depth as the bottom panel.They also  called for an earth  depth of 36"" on the top and 18" at the sides. Nice idea but it didn't work out. Try it and the top earth cheerfully  slides down off the curved top. Added to which l am not sure that enough earth has been dug out to do it. We did our best by all shovelling like mad and creating a rounded profile that  looked something like. Certainly  there wasn't 36" on the top. Later  industrial experience indicates that a flat filler top panel itself would have to support something up to two tons of muck at the required depth unpropped. Not a good idea.   (Proper name for it;  the trade journal was "The Muckshifter")

Looking back they were cold,  had an earth floor, no light, flooded  if it was in the wrong place,  and entry and exit  at ground level wasn't  easy. The obvious ommisson which dawned as soon as we got it in place was that there was no door. We were lucky in that father was into D.I.Y.. and made up a rough wooden cover. 

I don't suppose they would have withstood any sort of  bomb anywhere near.We sat in it during the Blitz  and many other nights. In the .mornings  l gathered up  shrapnel, jagged lumps as big as two fingers from the area roundabout. We were saved from them and at least we could still get out and go indoors. A lot of others couldn't.

 

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