Monument MPM1549 - Air Raid Shelters, HMS Nelson

Complex of Second World War air raid shelters located beneath part of the HMS Nelson site. The shelters are formed from concrete box-section tunnels. A section of these tunnels was removed during development work in 2013, but other parts of the complex still survive.

Complex of Second World War air raid shelters, consisting of concrete box-section tunnels, located beneath part of the HMS Nelson site. A section of tunnels were removed during the construction of a new five-storey accommodation block in 2013. However, sections of the complex still remain beneath a car park to the west of the new building, and the Vanguard Building. The top of the tunnels were recorded as c300mm - c400mm below the present ground surface. The east-west tunnels measured 2.5m by 1.0m wide, the north-south tunnels 2.5m high by 2.0m wide.

The section of the tunnels removed in 2013 was partially recorded during a watching brief. It was only possible to investigate parts of the shelters visible around the edge of a trench, as the central section within the footprint of the new building had to be removed before it could be recorded due to safety reasons. It was found that in order to construct the shelters, vertical-sided trenches had been excavated from the contemporary ground surface, the sides of which were then lined with 'hit-and-miss' vertical shoring, and the shelters formed from steel reinforced concrete tunnels. The concrete measured between 260mm-420mm in thickness.

Accession No: 2013/898

Russel, A, Cottrell, P, Fedorowicz, A, 2013, Archaeological Watching Brief on land at HMS Nelson, Queen Street, Portsea, Portsmouth (Unpublished document). SPM278.