The Hidden Glasgow Forums

I see that one of the two remaining WW2 brick-built family bomb shelters adjacent to the Kings Park-Croftfoot-Burnside railway track has been demolished.

(It's a bizzare thought: "where will be build our shelter from the Lufwaffe, because the house might not be safe?" "Well we have a railway line at the bottom of our garden so we'll build it right next to that").

I know of one other such shelter in Rutherglen. It's actually built in the basement of a large house and even includes the old army style metal bunk bed frame still inside. The owner has asked me to keep the location secret.

Does anyone know of any other surviving examples? I'm not interested in the corrugated steel Anderson shelters. I'd also like to track down any remaining (and they will be obscure now) traces of the WW2 EWS signs, painted large writ on walls in yellow letters with black borders.

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escotregen wrote:...................................................................................
. I'd also like to track down any remaining (and they will be obscure now) traces of the WW2 EWS signs, painted large writ on walls in yellow letters with black borders.

Like this one Escotty in the City Centre



Fossil

escotregen wrote:
I'd also like to track down any remaining (and they will be obscure now) traces of the WW2 EWS signs, painted large writ on walls in yellow letters with black borders.

This kinda thing Escotty?



On the wall of my former employer Blythswood Street @ St Vincent St.

I've spotted a few of these but cannae mind where exactly.

You 2 been out together???

Sharon wrote:You 2 been out together???

who?


Fossil

Modern Fossil wrote:

Sharon wrote:You 2 been out together???

who? ::):


Fossil

Hahaha Didnae see you had got in there first Fossil.
What a coincidence!

I'm maybe just being a little thick here. (Not thinking hard enough)
But what do the letters stand for?

Is it Early Warning Shelter?

EWS = Emergency Water Supply


The 2 WW2 bomb shelters I remember have both been demolished, they both belonged to large private houses. The concrete one for Brookwood Library, Drymen Road, Bearsden was flattened to make way for the library extension. I used to play there as a kid. There's a large house that belongs to Glasgow University on the corner of Gibson St. and Hillhead St, that had a brick/concrete air raid shelter until fairly recently, but there's just a corner of the shelter left now.


Edited to add: A kid in my old scout troop mentioned that his house (one of the big victorian houses on Boclair Road, Bearsden) had a shelter in the garden. Given that the big houses with wealthy occupants tended to have much more substantial shelters, this may be what you're looking for.

Still know of a couple in the Kingspark Mount Florida area.Although most of the remaining Anderson's are now garden sheds.I spent a rather unpleasant 2hours trapped in one of my neigbours as a young child.

Striike Team wrote

EWS = Emergency Water Supply

There was I thinking that it meant English, Welsh and Scottish (Railway Company)!!

http://jameshowie6771.fotopic.net/p12633881.html

I know that sign in question,my thought was more simple.was that corner not a news stand

Fossil and Pgcc thanks for the photograph, what's the location? On the matter of what EWS stands for, some of the old guys that were in the ARWs or Home Guard have insisted when I spoke to them that it's actually Emergency Water Storage. Some of these guys have kept their service issue bayonents - so I'm not arguing the point in case I get a point.

On a related aside; in Carol Reed's terrific b/w film 'The Odd Man' the wounded IRA man spends much of his time on the run in gloomy dank brick shelters that still littered the streets of immediately post WW2 Belfast.

So far as I can ascertain, Glasgow Corporation had a peacetime Blitz to remove all of the remaining brick shelters in back courts in the very late 1950s. They had by then become a public hazard. The ones located within streets were being demolished even before the end of WW2.[/i]

PGcc I've just noticed that you did actually give the location; thanks.