After my recent Hounslow air raid shelter post, I thought I'd get a few more public air raid shelter tunnels up. Digging into the vaults a bit here, gosh doesn't time fly, I still consider this 'recent'. Did these two shelters on a day out to Kent's Isle of Thanet with @KismetJ and two non-forum explorers. At the time, we weren't really used to getting this 'intrusive' with access so it felt a bit bold given they're in pretty public places, but both were a success. At one of them, my friend waited by the entry which is in a very busy public place indeed. A guy came up to him 'wot u doin?!', to which he just replied 'exploring' and the guy just seemed satisfied and turned away. We had hi vis to make ourselves look a little alarming but seemingly that wasn't enough. Otherwise, both went fine and were pretty cool to see. I can't honestly remember who took what shots but it seems they might be a mix of my own and Kismets. I had them sitting on my hard drive for a while and edited them up about 2-3 years ago.
Margate Air Raid Shelter
This public shelter appears to have been constructed for pedestrians along the seafront. Probably not holiday makers as surely the coastline would have been guarded and protected with defences during wartime, and besides holidays weren't really on the cards with the risk of getting blasted by an SC50 or invaded by angry Krauts being present. it was a pretty small shelter, I think in a rough 'S' shape but I could be misremembering. It was a really nice one though that felt like a bit of a.. dare I say time capsule. The toilets were still in situ as was some of the signage which was nice.
Super cool original sign. It does actually read 'Borough of Margate' but I originally edited to keep it concealed.
Surviving lighting fixtures.
Pretty cool original toilets and rotten door.
The original pedestrian entrance, now infilled.
Broadstairs Air Raid Shelter
This one we decided to do in the dark to be a bit more careful about after the earlier shelter encounter with an NPC. It was nice and straightforward and also pretty cool. Bigger but a lot more bare. It is split into two sections; one being a pristine concrete precast tunnel that featured roots growing in everywhere like something from War of the Worlds. The other section was a vaulted rendered concrete tunnel. One was likely an extension to the other. It was designed to hold 130 people or more.
Maybe a toilet corner.
Possible lighting mount.
Roots everywhere
Where the two sections meet
Escape hatch, ladder now missing
Electrical room. At one point I believe the lighting worked here.
That's all folks
