Air Raid Shelter in Roundhay

floodland · Post by **floodland** » Wed 28 Mar, 2007 1:52 pm

at school i heard about a communal shelter in the wood behind Tesco on Roundhay Road (which was once Blackburn's Olympia Works), and possibly others in the woods on the other side of the road.although i live just round the corner now, i hadn't followed this up until a few weeks ago, so i went to take a look. if you enter the woods from Dean Court, off Gledhow Wood Road, there is a small brick structure, with two levels visible; the top is at ground level, the one beneath has a small aperture but is not accessible. whilst this doesn't constitute the shelter i was looking for in itself, i assume that this could be the entrance block to a large underground structure to house Olympia Works' employees. Any info on this? would also be interested to see what the factory looked like before Tesco was built.

rikj · Post by **rikj** » Wed 28 Mar, 2007 11:40 pm

Hi flood, in the woods there are broken pre-formed concrete sections that would suggest there was a large shelter for the factory employees near to the current Tesco. There may be some pictures of the Blackburn works on leodis. I think they used to have an airfield there. I've heard that there is a propellor from a crashed plane still in a garden somewhere nearby.The Leeds Gentlemens Exploration Society were obliged under our terms of reference to investigate these persistent rumours but we found that although there may be some shelters there they are sealed and access is not possible.And we couldn't possibly comment.

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Thu 29 Mar, 2007 2:13 pm

mmm. I said somebody else had been poking around there since my last visit. It looks like we found the culprit. Mr Floodland...Hi. Riks right there. The big shelters from Blackburns are pretty much buried. You can just make out the void where it was at the back of the Gipton pub. The other thing you were looking at i'd be suprised if it's a Blackburns shelter, It's too far away & is only small inside. A cottage & a big stone houses used to be on the edge of the woods. It could have been a private shelter for them perhaps

Diamondeyes · Post by **Diamondeyes** » Thu 29 Mar, 2007 11:24 pm

I too remember the entrances to the shelters in the woods. As a child about 25 years ago my brother and I used to visit friends in Oakwell Oval who's house backed onto the woods, we used to cut through the garden and go and play round the entrances to the shelters, we were always fascinated by them and very tempted to explore them but never quite dared to venture in! From what I remember there were several differnet entrances at various locations in the woods, they were made of brick and concrete and seemed to be accessed from above via metal rung ladders fastened into the shafts? I know memories become distorted as time goes on but I am fairly confident that my memories are acurate, they seemed very much intact at that time, however I cant remember whether they were in the area where tesco is now or in what remains of the woodland high above the car park? I too would be interested to find out more if anyone else has information about them.

raveydavey · Post by **raveydavey** » Fri 30 Mar, 2007 9:47 pm

rikj wrote: I think they used to have an airfield there. I've heard that there is a propellor from a crashed plane still in a garden somewhere nearby. I'm fairly sure that I read an article somewhere (years ago) that aircraft built there were moved up Wetherby Road to Soldiers Fields and they took off from there. It must have been quite a sight!I think it might have been around the time Tesco's was built (mid 80's?) that I read the article.Tesco's are apparently in the middle of trying to get planning permission to totally redevelop the whole site to build a huge new Tesco Extra (along the same lines as the one at Seacroft - although why they need another one 3 miles away is beyond me!), so more of the surrounding area might soon be subject to further changes.

rikj · Post by **rikj** » Fri 30 Mar, 2007 11:02 pm

Fascinating stuff diamondeyes, thanks for posting those memories up. Who knows what has been left behind and forgotten?raveydavey, there are some pics on leodis of planes on Soldiers Field, so you are right, they definately moved planes there at some point.I still want to know where that propellor is though!

biggee99 · Post by **biggee99** » Tue 06 Apr, 2010 7:45 pm

Blackburn's Olympia Works shelters, Must have counted over 40 air raid shelters in 4 different levels some still buried and most of them smashed, still a very interesting place, The workers must have run out the back door and into the woods to hide in the shelters fittest to the top shelters.

biggee99 · Post by **biggee99** » Tue 06 Apr, 2010 7:50 pm

A view of the levels