In mid 1940 it became clear that there was insufficient air-raid shelter accommodation in Canterbury and a scheme was drawn up for eight new communal surface shelters, each to house fifty persons. This seems to have been modified, slightly, and the resulting shelters were based on modules each housing forty eight. These were to be built of brick and concrete. Toward the end of July, a scheme was devised for a shelter in Westgate Grove, to house ninety-six persons. This proved immediately controversial, but was approved on condition that the shelter ‘be sited so as to cause as little interference as possible with the rose garden adjoining the river and with the amenities of premises in the vicinity’. At the end of July a tender was accepted, of Mr G.A. Stone, to build this and six other surface shelters. Opposition from some Westgate Grove residents, however, proved so intense (Mayor Williamson was at one point denounced as ‘the daughter of Beelzebub’) that, in early September, the site was abandoned and a new one sought in the churchyard itself. On the morning of 4 September 1940 the Mayor and Sherriff of Canterbury visited the Westgate area of the City, during a Battle of Britain ‘dogfight,’ to ‘look for a site for a surface shelter near Holy Cross Church’. They ‘surveyed the burial ground, looking at the dates o n the gravestones’ but were rudely interrupted by a bomb falling nearby. A site was eventually selected on the southern boundary of the churchyard ‘having a frontage to St Peter’s Place.’ The Emergency Committee consoled themselves in that this new site would ‘allow a larger shelter and [be] more convenient for the omnibus station’ on the opposite side; it would house 192 persons at an ‘only slightly higher cost’. As an alteration to church property it’s construction required Faculty permission, but this was duly granted and the shelter erected. Toward the end of March 1941 a concrete floor was provided. In early April 1941 simple decontamination facilities were provided at the shelter, and in February 1942 it was strengthened with reinforced concrete. An historic photograph (Kent Messenger Group) reproduced in Images of Canterbury (see sources) shows a shelter apparently wholly clad in concrete, presenting a canted concrete roof to the road side. The entrance was marked by an illuminated sign on a post embedded in the concrete part way along this side.
Owner : Public
Publicly accessible : Unknown
How accessed for survey :
Tourism Potential :
Condition : Destroyed
Date of visit :

Canterbury City Council Emergency Committee, 01/01/39, Canterbury City Council Emergency Committee Minute Books 1 to 6 (Unpublished document). SKE14926.

Canterbury City Council Emergency Committee, 01/01/39, Canterbury City Council Emergency Committee Minute Books 1 to 6 (Unpublished document). Ske14926.

Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral, 01/01/40, Faculty papers, Parish of Holy Cross (Unpublished document). SKE14929.

Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral, 01/01/40, Faculty papers, Parish of Holy Cross (Unpublished document). Ske14929.

Williamson C., 01/01/46, Though the Streets Burn (Bibliographic reference). SKE14927.

Williamson C., 01/01/46, Though the Streets Burn (Bibliographic reference). Ske14927.

Anon., 01/01/97, Images of Canterbury (Bibliographic reference). SKE14928.

Anon., 01/01/97, Images of Canterbury (Bibliographic reference). Ske14928.