Underground Shelters On Figge's Marsh
A Memory of Mitcham.
In 1944, when I was six, bombs dropped at the end of our road in N. Mitcham (Caithness Road) rendering our home, and others, uninhabitable, and after spending one night at Woodland Way Community Hall we were transferred to the underground shelters on Figge's Marsh. I believe there were three in a row, access by several steps down to the door. As far as I recall, there were bunks three high on either side of a center aisle. I can still see the looks of despair on the faces of some of the traumatized adults, and can smell the stuffy earthy smell around us. Many of us in those shelters were evacuated to Sheffield a few days later. For several years after the end of the war the shelters remained in place, visible by the domed tops above the surface of the ground, and the grass which had been put on top of them to make them less obvious to enemy planes during the war. The shelters would not have been much protection from bombs which might have fallen nearby, but they at least provided shelter from the elements. Does anyone else remember these shelters? I have searched online in vain for mention of them. Does anyone know when they were dismantled?
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