The British found an underground shelter from the Second World War in their garden (21 photos + 1 video)

Category: Nostalgia, Beautiful cities, PEGI 0+

2 March 2024

Rebecca Hobson, 34, and her husband discovered a 50-metre underground tunnel hidden under their house in a village near Folkestone, Kent. During the Second World War, this place, built by volunteers, served as a bomb shelter for local residents.

Rebecca said she and her husband Darren moved into the house 15 years ago. They discovered the entrance to the shelter when they got bored during the pandemic in 2020 and decided to properly investigate the outskirts of the garden.

They started excavating and cleaning this place only last year, but now they decided to show it, so to speak, in all its historical glory.

During German bombings during the war, this underground tunnel could provide shelter for 200 women and children. Rusty bowls, rat traps and an old toy gun were found inside.

The tunnel is quite narrow - a meter wide. And the height is just over two meters

It was built by local residents on a voluntary basis

The “video tour” shows that the length of the tunnel is about 50 meters. It ends in a dead end on the territory of Rebecca's neighbors. Previously, there was another entrance to the shelter, but the neighbors blocked it with bricks.

Rebecca and Darren shared their video on TikTok and it went viral. Users were truly amazed by this find. The video was watched by 390,000 people.

In general, this whole story began after local residents said that in the garden, perhaps, “there is something related to the Second World War”

Tired of their boring seclusion during the pandemic, the couple wanted a thrill and decided to search the back of their garden to see if these claims were true. To their amazement, they found an overgrown tunnel entrance.

Amazing footage shows steps leading down into the shelter and revealing a passage

The video was viewed by 390,000 people

“When we moved into this house, we had no idea there was a bomb shelter in our garden,” says Rebecca. — Until one of the local residents said that there might be something related to the war in the garden. We found the entrance under a large slab in the garden."

Newspaper clippings reveal the air raid shelter was built by volunteers during World War II to protect 200 women and children from the "monstrous cruelty of Hitlerism"

Old toy gun found in a tunnel

It is engraved with the words "Lone Star"

“People told us there was something in our garden, but we didn’t want to do anything about it,” Rebecca continues. “It was only when we found ourselves isolated and bored that we decided to look into it.” We're still trying to figure out his story, but it's still very interesting. Our row of houses was built in the seventies and we suspect that the ground they dug for the foundations of these houses hid the tunnel."

According to the couple, after discovering a wartime shelter, they cleared a passage and installed lighting in it.

They don't plan to make any more changes because they want to keep the place in its original form.

Tunnel to the edgeOsedsky garden, but the neighbors were afraid that there might be rats there, so they blocked the entrance from their side

Rebecca says her children were thrilled to visit the wartime shelter and have since been asking local schools if they would like to take students on a tour.