Bunkers

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Mon 26 Feb, 2007 12:38 pm

A bank owned it geoff (Leeds permanent) i think. They kept there documents there during the war. There's a dumb waiter on the top of the shelter & the door way is lower down in the quarry face.

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Mon 26 Feb, 2007 12:54 pm

Brandy wrote: whoooops sorry people i seem to have made a little error there sorry (Are you finding the upload process akward too? Didn't think your pic had uploaded & done it several times?)

Post by **dsco** » Mon 26 Feb, 2007 2:15 pm

Hi Phil - if you're having any difficulties with the attachment process please let us know, the tech support forum is the place to do it, or you can send us a contact form.The images uploaded to the site have to be individually approved by the Secret Leeds team, as we can't have inappropriate pictures appearing. We are doing our best to approve stuff regularly, at least once a day, but please bear with us.We are having some other teething trouble as might be expected, but we are still working on the site. The issue with pictures displaying incorrectly will be sorted out soon so message pages won't stretch to the full width of the image.

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Mon 26 Feb, 2007 4:05 pm

Hi Dsco. No i manage with the upload ok but i think a few people may think nothing has happened when there picture doesn't appear straight away and may have another go. Then we get a few of the same! I agree that the pictures should be approved first because there's always trolls out to spoil groups like this. But some groups seem to put people on a probation period & when there pics & comments have been ok for a length of time there stuff gets uploaded straight away. Is this possible with secret Leeds?

Post by **dsco** » Mon 26 Feb, 2007 7:54 pm

hi phil,yes it is possible to create a group of 'trusted' users, and it does seem like a good idea. will work on getting that sorted out ...cheers,dsco

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Mon 26 Feb, 2007 8:05 pm

TOP NOTCH!!!!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue 27 Feb, 2007 1:05 pm

testing

Ro-Man · Post by **Ro-Man** » Wed 28 Feb, 2007 9:42 am

Phill_d wrote: A bank owned it geoff (Leeds permanent) i think. They kept there documents there during the war. There's a dumb waiter on the top of the shelter & the door way is lower down in the quarry face. Do you know if the bank built it as well? Seems a lot of effort to go to for one bank - I wondered if it also had miltary connections, as there's a lot of other bunkers etc. in Adel Woods and surrounding areas, which suggests to me it might have been connected to these.

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Wed 28 Feb, 2007 1:10 pm

Hi Ro man. As it happens the Evening post ran an article about this very bunker only last year, Revealing it's true purpose. If anyone has a better memory than me or can find the archive story about it then great. As i remeber it was built exclusively for the bank to keep there records in during the blitz. It's a good 40'x20' long & does seem a lot of hard work-But they undertook some huge construction work in the war years. I've seen a few concrete remains in the woods but nothing else substantial. Is there anything else i've missed?

Ro-Man · Post by **Ro-Man** » Wed 28 Feb, 2007 3:15 pm

Phill_d wrote: Hi Ro man. As it happens the Evening post ran an article about this very bunker only last year, Revealing it's true purpose. If anyone has a better memory than me or can find the archive story about it then great. As i remeber it was built exclusively for the bank to keep there records in during the blitz. It's a good 40'x20' long & does seem a lot of hard work-But they undertook some huge construction work in the war years. I've seen a few concrete remains in the woods but nothing else substantial. Is there anything else i've missed? Thanks for the info Phill_d, that's a mystery solved for me.I've managed to track down the article and have posted it here (I've acknowledged the copyright so I hope it's ok to stay on here).Yorkshire Evening PostOctober 21, 2006Bunker was vital to the homes frontBy Howard WilliamsonTHE mystery of a wartime concrete bunker found in overgrown north Leeds woodland has been solved.Speculation in the village of Adel was rife that it was a Second World War air raid shelter - and in a way that was true.But the real story has emerged thanks to some timely information from the Halifax Bank, which took over Leeds Permanent Building Society in 1995.Bosses have revealed that the bunker was a wartime store for the deeds of property worth nearly £100m, together with other building society records.These documents had been lodged in strong rooms at Permanent House in the centre of Leeds, where they were vulnerable to German air raids.Safer quarters were hard to find. The solution was to build the bunker in a four-acre quarry in Adel Woods, the plans being prepared in 1939.WatertightThe bunker provided 25,000 cubic feet of storage space on two decks. It was built of reinforced concrete and had a watertight envelope of brick and asphalt.Heavy doors and grilles protected the entrances and an armoured steel door guarded the main entrance.It was essential to bring electricity to the bunker and a road up to the entrance had to be made so vehicles could take deeds to and from the safe.Boxes of deeds began to rust because of condensation and several methods of drying were tried before a cure was found.A book, A Survey of One Hundred Years of Leeds Permanent Building Society 1848-1948, states: "In spite of all the difficulties, the project was highly successful."The best proof is the fact that Leeds Corporation stored many of its historic documents there, including the Charter granted to the city in the 17th century by King Charles II."These, together with the deeds deposited in the safe, were in excellent condition when removed in September 1945. In 1946 the place was dismantled and bricked up."One writer to the Hidden Leeds website recalled a visit to the bunker in 1974: "The entrance had a small opening wide enough for three 12-year-olds to climb through and shimmy down a short knotted rope ladder."My friends had previously had the courage to creep down two flights of concrete stairs, but never to go any further. Madness overtook this day and we went all the way to the bottom. We came across an underground room at least 100 yards long."Every three or four yards were pillars that had what looked like concrete bunk-beds. The room was pretty dusty and looked to us like it was being kept in good condition."We got a little scared as the batteries on our torches soon turned a dull faint amber and we quickly made our way up the stairwell."Copyright Yorkshire Evening Post--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------As for other things in Adel Woods, I've seen a few bricked up entrances and ruins, but I can't be sure these are wartime, or just ruins of old houses. I think that there were troop manoeuvres around Golden Acre Park so I wondered if the bunker was connected to these in some way. I think I read there was also some sort of air raid crews based in the area.In my childhood I was told a couple of times that there was a large bunker under the grass in the area between Adel Woods and the Buckstone Estate. I was told that an entrance existed where the playground is now sited, although I never saw anything, and now any entrance would have been concreted over by the playground.Although I remain sceptical about this, when I challenged it with the people who told me, they said that this area has never been built on for this reason, and that about 15 years or so ago a large pile of earth appeared near to where the entrance would have been. They claimed that this was to fill in most of the bunker complex.I'll leave you to make up your own mind about that one!There a few other wartime related relics in Meanwood Woods, but I'll post that on another thread.