An underground wartime shelter that could hold up to 800 people was found during works to revamp Lewisham town centre, The Greenwich Wire can reveal.
The shelter managed to withstand a Nazi rocket attack on the high street that killed more than 50 people, but had been forgotten about over time – until work began earlier this year for a new canopy that will house the street market.
There is no space for the public to access the shelter, as the entrances have been blocked up in the years since the Second World War – so it will end up hidden away beneath the new-look market.
However, the council said it would look at ways to allow public access if there was enough interest.
News that the shelter had been discovered was hinted at last week, when Lewisham Council published a progress report on its project to give the town centre an overhaul, with a new-look market and a culture and business hub in the library.
Work on the canopy had been held up because of “exceptionally deep concrete, uncharted utilities and water infrastructure, and a previously uncharted underground structure associated with the wartime use of the site”, the report said.
“Exceedingly heavy concrete is being laid as a covering,” a local newspaper reported at the time the shelter was built in 1939.
The bomb that hit Lewisham, and the siren that didn’t sound
By the time the Second World War broke out, councils around London were building public shelters so people could take cover from air raids if they were away from home.
In Lewisham High Street, the shelter was built 1.5 metres under green spaces in front of the shops, in front of the Marks & Spencer store, with walls and roof slabs up to one metre thick.
On the morning of July 28, 1944, the top of the shelter was hit by a V1 flying bomb. No warning sirens were heard until after the bomb hit, denying stallholders and shoppers the chance to take cover in the shelter.
The M&S store was destroyed, but the shelter was said to have only suffered minimal damage. The shelter’s only occupant was unhurt. Above ground, some 51 people died.
Anger at the lack of warning, which undoubtedly contributed to the death toll, led to Winston Churchill being booed when he visited Lewisham during the election campaign a year later.
Shelter’s entrances filled in after the war
After the war, the shelter, which lies 1.5 metres below ground, was abandoned and largely forgotten about, except among historians. The entrances were mostly filled in, meaning access is only possible for people who are qualified to work in confined spaces.
When work is finished next year, the shelter will be covered by a market canopy, which will mean that traders can operate in all weathers and in the evenings.
A Lewisham Council spokesperson told The Greenwich Wire: “It is hard to know if the shelter was fully forgotten, or how its existence fell out of common knowledge. It may be that those who were alive then, and in the decades following, remember there was a shelter there.
“Photographs from the Lewisham heritage archive collections show the shelter, so although knowledge of the shelter’s existence has faded over time, it is quietly evidenced in some records.
“Anyone entering would need to be confined space trained and with the necessary support equipment and personnel. If there was interest to make it more accessible in the future, we could explore options then.”
The Long and Lazy Lewisham blog has a detailed account of events leading up to the V1 attack on the high street, with a photograph of the shelter’s exterior.
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