AIR-RAID SHELTERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 July 1939, Page 9

AIR-RAID SHELTERS

SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES. AT ARRAS. TOURIST ATTRACTION OF CITY. Arras, well known to British soldiers during the war, is completely provided with air-raid shelters. Like many other towns of the North of France, Arras has for centuries had a number of subterranean passages. So numerous are these in Arras that they form one ol the tourist attractions of the city. The passages are from 60 to 75 feet below the ground, and there are some streets where the inhabitants can go from house to house below the surface. The town of Arras possesses the famous town hall with its belfry that was destroyed during the last war but later restored in its entirety. The stones were picked up from the heap of debris and put back into place, as were the stones of the houses that face the square, so that the tourist finds it hard to believe that the old houses, with their typically Spanish arcades. a •relic of the Spanish domination o' Flanders, have not stood undisturbed for centuries. In the square adjoining there are still half a dozen of the big houses where only the facade has been restored, and through the gaping win dows one can see the charred beams that once supported floors. Arras possesses a treasure of parti cular English interest, a gold medal struck by the Romans, representing what was then London. It was found by some workmen together with a number of other gold coins, and it is believed that it formed part of a treasure which one of the Roman legions returning from Britain lost or hid in the region of Arras.