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Archaeologist finds WW2 air raid shelter in garden

John Devinein Chatteris
News imageJohn Devine/BBC Mary Andrews has light brown, shoulder length hair and is wearing a blue bobble hat which covers her head. She has brown-frame glasses and a dark green overcoat over a brown woollen jumper with white hedgehog designs on it. She is standing in the open doorway of a small air raid shelter with a new wooded door with a green doorframe, some bare shrub branches are growing on a wooden fence.John Devine/BBC
Mary Andrews said she thought her garden contained an old brick built outhouse, but that changed when she discovered the building's concrete roof

An archaeologist said she was "delighted" to discover a World War Two air raid shelter in her back garden after removing some overgrowth.

Mary Andrews, 35, bought the end-of-terrace Victorian house in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, in January and was told the building at the bottom of the back garden was an old brick shed.

The structure was covered with heavily overgrown shrubs and when the plants were removed a 22-cm (9-in) concrete roof was exposed.

After some research, Ms Andrews said she found the mystery outhouse was a WW2 domestic surface air raid shelter.

News imageJohn Devine/BBC A white washed brick building about 2m (6ft) by 2.44m (8ft), it has a green doorframe and a new wooden door with a metal bolt. It has a 22cm (9in) thick reinforced concrete roof. There is a black compost bin on the left and some shrubs on the right.John Devine/BBC
The shelter was in a poor state when Ms Andrews uncovered it and her father, Colin Andrews, replaced the door that was rotten and hanging off the hinges

Ms Andrews said the land registry for her house showed a small square box at the bottom of her garden, but it was her dad, Colin Andrews, who first noticed the building's roof.

"It was a quite overgrown when I moved in and my dad came round to help sort the garden.

"[He] thought it was a bit over the top to have such a thick slab of concrete on the roof on what we'd assumed was a brick shed," she said.

News imageJohn Devine/BBC Colin Andrews has short grey hair and beard and has a green flat cap on his head. He has glasses with tinted lenses and is wearing a faun fleece over a blue, black and white shirt, he is holding the wooden door to the shelter open.John Devine/BBC
Colin Andrews said he thought as his daughter's home was near the former railway station in Chatteris, the terrace house might have been for railway workers

When Ms Andrews used a spade to remove the overgrowth on outside of the building she hit a solid object, which turned out to be tiled bricks that led to the entrance to the shelter.

Ms Andrews added the shelter did not have anything inside it except "a few old logs for the fire".

News imageMary Andrews A small white brick built shelter is covered with purple shrubbery in a back garden.Mary Andrews
The doorway to the shelter was completely covered with shrubbery when Ms Andrews moved into her home

Mr Andrews said the shelter was also sunken below ground level by about 30cm (1 ft) which only became apparent after some clearance.

"The property is part of a terrace of three homes and they are quite near where the old Chatteris railway station was, so they might have been railway men's cottages and needed the shelter as the area could have been a target during World War Two," he said.

Ms Andrews said she was delighted to uncover a relic from nearly 90 years ago.

She added that she would keep the shelter to store gardening tools and "bits and bobs".

News imageJohn Devine/BBC A white washed brick building about 2m (6 ft) by 2.44m (8 ft) and about 2m (6 ft) high.John Devine/BBC
Mr Andrews said she only discovered it was sunken into the ground by about 30cm (1ft) when she cleared the entrance

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