Second World War air raid shelter at the Jolly Drayman public house, on the west side of Wellington Street, Gravesend. It consists of adapted former beer cellars under the public house car park, with jack-arched brick ceilings and later brick structures which seem to have been introduced as part of the shelter. There is a rectangular yellow brick exit building on the ground surface above, to which a now vanished staircase was to take shelter users. There is also a tunnel from the cellars under Wellington Street to the former Alan G. Smith premises on the western side of the street which presumably had user-access rights to the shelter. The shelter would have been for the use of public house customers and members of the community outside. It was built by June, 1940 and decommissioned by the end of the Second World War in Europe in 1945. The shelter survives but in a derelict condition.
Owner : Private
Publicly accessible : No
How accessed for survey : The yellow brick exit/entrance structure in the car park of the public house is visible from Wellington Street, athough the shelter is not, being within the closed underground premises of the Jolly Drayman.
Tourism Potential :
Condition : moderate
Date of visit : 01/02/06

Gravesham Borough Council, 25/06/40, Minutes of Gravesend Council's Emergency Committee (Bibliographic reference). SKE13967.

Gravesham Borough Council, 25/06/40, Minutes of Gravesend Council's Emergency Committee (Bibliographic reference). Ske13967.