Secret Room 2... "Nazi Bunker"
Discussion
Some of you may recall that in the "Secret Room" thread a few months ago, I said that I thought I had a nazi bunker buried in my garden. Well, since then I decided to get off my backside and excavate it. 
Our house is in an old quarry, and when we bought it five or so years ago, the previous owner (an old guy) told us that there was a tunnel built by the germans during WW2. He said it was big enough to drive into, and that his father had buried the entrance during redevelopments, but not before filling it with stuff that lying around the property (?). He showed me the rough location, and I've marked it on this little map with a red dot....
Because this is Pistonheads, to illustrate another way, here is the location immediately behind my MX5
.
Since then, an old gardener has told me that it was full of nazi vehicles
, but i've taken that with a pinch of salt.
However, i knew that there were in fact several tunnels nearby on other properties. My neighbours have one, now used as a store which can be seen from the road....
ETA: Pic removed (Apologies)
and there is another one further up the road, in a roadside bank, which is also being used as a store....
(from the outside)
But, the problem with mine is that is far more buried!
So I traced some WW2 reconnaisance photos of the property, which appeared to show the entrance road. These were taken in 1945, and i've marked the entrance in red - you can just see the road turning into the shadow cast by the entrance...
Armed with all this info, a few weeks back I started clearing the undergrowth around the entrance....
What started like this....
quickly became this....
and then this...
The steps in that last one aren't anything to do with the bunker, and will be sacrificed. Oh, and that boulder on the left is going to cause problems too....
I soon realised that, as mentioned in the last thread, I needed heavy duty equipment to continue. So today, a digger was delivered
And I got impatient....
so i got some guys in and we got stuck in this afternoon....
As we dig down, the boulder starts to look precarious....
It eventually starts to topple.... and the digger driver has to steady it down...
As I was taking the picture, he was actually shouting at me to move my car, which was behind the digger at the time and at risk of being hit as he reversed.
(from the yard)
(from where it came)
As the huge rock rolled away though, the spotter shouted that he'd seen something that had been uncovered....
We shift a few more rocks and.... reckon we found the entrance ..
Unfortunately.... the boulder was too big for the digger to move (we estimated about 8 tonnes) and we needed to get behind it to keep digging. So we had to call a halt to proceedings while I source a rock-breaker attachment for the digger!
oh, and I hadn't warned the wife either... so I had this to explain when she came home
More updates this weekend
Edited on 12th June to add:
As at today this thread stands at 106 pages. Its full of the drama, comedy and heartache that PH legendary threads are known for. If you would prefer not to partake of the adventure, I've created a blogsite where only the information that I post appears (although only in summary form). I would thoroughly recommend reading the whole thread (if you have time because the contributions of many are often not to be missed)
Otherwise for the blog click here... Yes, I have a short attention span
Our house is in an old quarry, and when we bought it five or so years ago, the previous owner (an old guy) told us that there was a tunnel built by the germans during WW2. He said it was big enough to drive into, and that his father had buried the entrance during redevelopments, but not before filling it with stuff that lying around the property (?). He showed me the rough location, and I've marked it on this little map with a red dot....
Because this is Pistonheads, to illustrate another way, here is the location immediately behind my MX5
.Since then, an old gardener has told me that it was full of nazi vehicles
, but i've taken that with a pinch of salt.However, i knew that there were in fact several tunnels nearby on other properties. My neighbours have one, now used as a store which can be seen from the road....
ETA: Pic removed (Apologies)
and there is another one further up the road, in a roadside bank, which is also being used as a store....
(from the outside)
But, the problem with mine is that is far more buried!
So I traced some WW2 reconnaisance photos of the property, which appeared to show the entrance road. These were taken in 1945, and i've marked the entrance in red - you can just see the road turning into the shadow cast by the entrance...
Armed with all this info, a few weeks back I started clearing the undergrowth around the entrance....
What started like this....
quickly became this....
and then this...
The steps in that last one aren't anything to do with the bunker, and will be sacrificed. Oh, and that boulder on the left is going to cause problems too
....I soon realised that, as mentioned in the last thread, I needed heavy duty equipment to continue. So today, a digger was delivered
And I got impatient....
so i got some guys in and we got stuck in this afternoon....
As we dig down, the boulder starts to look precarious....
It eventually starts to topple.... and the digger driver has to steady it down...
As I was taking the picture, he was actually shouting at me to move my car, which was behind the digger at the time and at risk of being hit as he reversed.
(from the yard)
(from where it came)
As the huge rock rolled away though, the spotter shouted that he'd seen something that had been uncovered....
We shift a few more rocks and.... reckon we found the entrance
..Unfortunately.... the boulder was too big for the digger to move (we estimated about 8 tonnes) and we needed to get behind it to keep digging. So we had to call a halt to proceedings while I source a rock-breaker attachment for the digger!
oh, and I hadn't warned the wife either... so I had this to explain when she came home
More updates this weekend
Edited on 12th June to add:
As at today this thread stands at 106 pages. Its full of the drama, comedy and heartache that PH legendary threads are known for. If you would prefer not to partake of the adventure, I've created a blogsite where only the information that I post appears (although only in summary form). I would thoroughly recommend reading the whole thread (if you have time
because the contributions of many are often not to be missed)Otherwise for the blog click here... Yes, I have a short attention span
Edited by CY88 on Friday 27th June 08:26
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