BOMB AND GASPROOF SHELTER

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 63, 1 April 1937, Page 11

BOMB AND GASPROOF SHELTER

-Own Correspondent.)

Will Hold 150 People for Indefinite Period MIDLANDS PROJECT

,(By Air Mail—

LONDON, Mareh 16. A gas and bomb-proof shelter, which can hold 150 people for an indefinite period, is being bailt in secret by a baronet in "the South Midlands. ' ' This is one of several great air-raid shelters we are building throughout Britain," an official of British Air-raid Shelters, Limited, told the Sunday Eefereo. . ' '.It is the biggest job we have tackled so far. Thousands of tons of concrete and steel are being nsed. The shelter will be eompletely hidden. The baronet for whoxn we are constructing it has ordered ns to build a private theatre above it. The theatre stalls alone will seat 350, so you have somo idea of the area we are now excavating. So far there .is little to eee' bnt a hole, forty-five feet deep. ' ' When completed there will be living accommodation for 150 of the baronet 's retain,ers....There will be food to withstand a - siege of almost indefinite" length. The place is, in truth, a'for'tress, more than a shelter. It will'be equipped with rec'essed bunks, wireless, osygen, electricity "for cooking and heating and light, great reserve water supplies, telephone, and, of course, a modern draiauge system. •'The walls will be of concrete more than eight feet in thickness, reinforced with steel. Surrounding the concrete is a layer of sand designed to filter poisonous gases should they penetrate beneath the snrface of the earth. "The shelter will be absolutaly impervious to air boinbs, or to shells. "We are building similar shelters for private individuals throughout the conntry. This week we complete a jol> for a Mr Upjohn, who lives at Prince'a Way, "Wimbledon. He ordered us to construct a shelter capable of housing 25 people for a period of two weeks at a stretch. We built him two circular rooms with a connecting passage. They lie beneath his- f ront garden, "The shelter is equipped with all modern conveniences and, though built as an nndergrouud house for about six people, can provide refugo for a scoxe extra if the occasion demande."