Simon Marks, 37, recently stumbled upon something truly bizarre. Although he had been living in the same house for quite some time, it wasn’t until now that he discovered he had been completely unaware of what was hidden in the property he bought years ago.
One day, while trying to park his car, he encountered what appeared to be a flowerbed. His car’s wheels got stuck, and he heard strange cracking noises coming from the driveway.
“Well, this day couldn’t get any worse,” he thought sarcastically.
As he knelt down to inspect the situation, Marks realized the pavers on the driveway had cracked, and the ground was starting to give way. The sound of the cracking pavers led him to an astonishing discovery.
After clearing away the dirt, he noticed a piece of metal beneath the surface. Unsure of what lay hidden under the driveway, Marks tried to pull the metal piece out but couldn’t. Determined to uncover the mystery, he continued investigating.
At a loss for what to do next, he called his father for help. Together, they cleared away large amounts of tightly-packed mud, which eventually revealed an opening. Inside, they found an old rusty ladder, and the two men climbed down, eager to see where it would lead.
“My dad saw it and instantly said it’s an air raid shelter,” Marks shared. “We googled it and found there are quite a few in this area.”
The shelter they uncovered in Marks’ garden turned out to have been constructed during World War II.
“The previous owner must have known it was there and when he built the house and put a garden in… he must have filled it in,” Marks remarked.
These shelters were designed to protect people from bombings during the war and are believed to have been invented by Sir John Anderson.
“One of the walls has been bricked up. I’m 90 percent sure we won’t find out any more rooms but we don’t know. They might have bricked up one of the walls when the house was built to make way for the foundations,” Marks commented. “If that’s the case we’ll just have to leave it,” he noted.
After posting photos of his discovery, Marks’ story quickly went viral.
Marks and his father plan to restore the shelter, believing it to be an important historical monument. They emphasize that, even though that period of history is behind us, it shouldn’t be forgotten, as it offers a valuable glimpse into those times.
