Site Records

Site Name: Godstone - Private Fallout Shelter

RSG site visit September 1997

During 1997 a house in Godstone, Surrey was offered for sale incorporating a fall-out shelter in the rear garden. In September of that year, Subterranea Britannica obtained permission to visit the bunker from the estate agents. The general area in which the bunker was situated was used for tipping soil and general rubbish. It was sited on a little hill at the rear of the property with good views of the surrounding district.

Entry was through double steel doors, which were set horizontally into the ground within a rectangular concrete frame. The decent started with a short flight of concrete steps, which led to a steel stairway with a landing part way down. At the bottom of the stairway was a small kitchen and chemical toilet - no concessions to hygene with the two together! The toilet was a Norfolk Broads Flushing and the only privacy was a flimsy plastic curtain. This area also had a drain grill in the middle of the floor and a hand pump on the wall to pump out water to the surface from the sump under the grill. Tanks and cisterns beside the steel stairway supplied water to the bunker.

The remainder of the bunker consisted of a rectangular room containing twelve bunks, a large wall map of the northern hemisphere, an air filtration unit (O.Mengue Ing Elgg 2H), shelves and a wooden cupboard. There were a number of magazines lying around including Protect & Survive Monthly and a copy of British Civil Defence News. These magazines were dated 1981. There was an escape hatch from the far end of this room, which was a rectangular doorway in the wall (.78m high and .6m high) and 1 metre off the floor. There was a 19 cm thick steel door, which gave access to a ladder in a narrow shaft to a manhole at the surface 4.5 metres above. The manhole was earthed over at the surface. The bunker was constructed of reinforced concrete and measurement at the escape hatch indicated it was .3m thick. The main room had artexed walls and ceilings and was damp with staining on the walls in places.

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