Wednesday 22 April 2026 - Stockport Air Raid Shelters

A private, evening guided tour of the Air Raid Shelters was organised for 15 SWOG members, from 7.00pm until approximately 9.00pm, at £ 12.50 per person.

Our guide, warden, Roger Douling has a wealth of knowledge of the ARS Shelters and war times. He proved to be a brilliant raconteur and guide.

Whilst waiting for the others, Sue and I admired the grafitti on the other side of the road.

Made entirely from bottle tops.

After an introductory video, we entered a well lit part of the tunnel. The whole system is a ladder shaped  excavation out of the soft sandstone that lies deep in the Stockport area, where there are similar tunnels built to house thousands of folk from the Manchester area in the blitz of WW2. I'll finish this posting by way of captions.

The boss's office?

When sheltering here, up to 100 people could be seated each side,

with another 100 standing in the middle.

Roger was both informative and very entertaining

Some side passages were out of bounds, and Roger's assistant, Kate,

was positioned to intercept any deviants

It's a huge area, accommodating up to 5000 people.
For most of our visit we needed to use the headtorches provided

Early toilets were rudimentary affairs

Spot the grafitti

Beds were eventually provided. Originally the tunnels were expected to be used for short periods of an hour or so, but they soon became all night refuges

'WOMEN'

This is the hospital, screened for cleanliness, and equipped with a radio
(reception rather limited)

Eventually there was even a kitchen, mainly providing cups of tea

And flush toilets were introduced after a year or two

A warden's office

Well, wasn't that fun! It was dark when we emerged into the street that carries a blue plaque.

This is a popular outing for schoolchildren - fully booked until mid 2027, but visits like ours can be booked at fairly short notice. Roger and Kate do a couple every week. It was all very interesting.