Couple find secret bunker in back garden

7:03pm Sunday 5th August 2007

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A family who noticed a strange dip appear in their back garden were amazed to uncover an air raid shelter.

Angie and Stuart Crawford have lived in their Brighton home for nine years but only realised there was a piece of history lurking under their lawn after heavy rain softened the ground.

Stuart stuck a bamboo cane in the soil and was intrigued to find he could push it all the way down.

After hours of digging the couple uncovered a set of stairs leading into a small underground bunker.

The brick-built structure, which has white plastered walls, was empty apart from a light fitting.

Angie, 45, said: "There must have been a door to the entrance originally because we found bits of rotten wood in the soil.

"The room must have been sealed air-tight because it was immaculate inside - there were no spiders or dust, just a single light bulb.

"We were a bit disappointed there wasn't any treasure down there but it's a fascinating thing to find.

"It's weird to think about the people who used to live in our house sheltering down there."

Angie contacted the previous occupants of the Thirties house in Braeside Avenue, Patcham, Brighton, but despite having lived in the house for more than 20 years since 1976 they too were unaware of the secret shelter.

Now the family are trying to decide what to do with their new garden feature.

Angie, a civil servant, said: "My husband wants to keep it but it's so dark down there I'm not sure what we'd use it for."

Like others in Brighton, Patcham residents had to cope with numerous bombing raids during the Second World War.

Writing on the BBC People's War website, Elizabeth Jenner remembered when a German fighter aircraft landed on the downs beside Braeside Avenue and policeman Bill Riggs cycled out to arrest the pilot.

She also remembered a stick of bombs falling across the top of Portfield Avenue, Mackie Avenue and Glenfalls Avenue.

She recalled air raid shelters at her school in Patcham.

She wrote: "There were about 36 of us in the class, but only six children at a time were allowed to run across the playground to get the shelters, because the Germans had machine gunned people, including children, during air raids.

"We would run very quickly across the playground, I remember feeling very frightened."

On the same site, Jown Lawrence remembered a raid in spring 1940, when a German Dornier dropped its load on Portfield Avenue and on the downs behind bungalows in Ladies' Mile Road.

He wrote: "We didnít witness the explosion as by that time we had scurried down the trap door.

"Other bombs from the same aircraft fell beyond houses and bungalows into agricultural land behind Braeside Avenue."