Home > Sites > Deep Shelters > Vickers-Armstrong

Vickers-Armstrong Deep shelter, Brooklands, Surrey

In 1910 one of the UK's first aerodromes was opened in the middle of the Brooklands race circuit. The Vickers company opened a flying school there during World War One to train pilots, it also began manufacturing airplanes in vast numbers. During the run up to the Second World War the Vickers company where manufacturing Bombers for the RAF under the aircraft division of The Vickers-Armstrong Company.
The Germans realised that to win the war in the skies over the UK they would have to bomb RAF airfields and manufacturing plants in order to reduce the capacity of the Air force. This was accounted for and a number of interconnected air raid shelters where dug to form one enormous deep shelter opposite the factory in a disused sand quarry. This comprised of 17 individual passages joined together with interconnecting cross passages. The Passages where 180 feet long and had a 50 foot doglegged entrance tunnel complete with blast doors to protect against nearby bomb bursts.
Little is known about the use of the site after the war but evidence exists in the tunnels that indicates some for of storage/light production work although it is unknown if this was anything to do with the British Aircraft Corporation Ltd which was the post war company that Vickers-Armstrong became in the 1960's

The tunnels are in solid good condition, square in shape and made from concrete. There is ventilation equipment and electrical equipment still in situ from the War Era although the latter is in poor condition. The bunker is dry and surprisingly many WW2 era signs and paper notices remain in readable condition.