HER 48365 DESCRIPTION:- 2015 - Severn Vale NMP Project. One hundred and fifteen Second World War earth-bermed air raid shelters are visible on historic aerial photographs and were mapped as part of the Severn Vale NMP project. Located within the perimeter of the Gloster Aircraft Company factory and airfield at Hucclecote and centred at SO 88137 16501, the earth-covered air raid shelters were constructed adjacent to the main factory buildings on the airfield’s northern perimeter, due to the high number of employees working at the factory complex (some 14,000 in total working in shifts). Most of the factory’s air raid shelters, however, are recorded on the 1965 dated 1:1,250 scale Ordnance Survey map, but the Severn Vale NMP project has also mapped those air raid shelters that had been demolished by 1965 but which are visible on aerial photographs taken in 1944. Ordnance Survey maps show that of these air raid shelters survived to the early 1970s but appear to have been demolished by 1976. With one exception, the air raid shelters measure about 18 x 6 metres, most being set out in rows with a general NW-SE alignment. There is a single air raid shelter, centred at SO 88462 15927, located in the middle of the airfield away from other factory buildings, that is larger in dimensions than the other shelters at about 40.5 x 17.5 metres, aligned SSW-NNE with two entrance on the western side. None of these air raid shelters are visible in aerial photographs taken in 2010, which show them to have been levelled and now under roadways or building units of the expanding Gloucester Business Park. {Source Works 4249, 6880, 7823, & 10250.} |