Air Raid Shelters Tour

After a visit to the Hat Museum and a brief wander around the shops we were thinking about heading home. Then we discovered the air raid shelters. Due to lack of advertising and the fact that the entrance is slightly hidden away I don’t think the air raid shelters receive many spur of the moment visitors like us.
We were the only people in the place, so it was nice for them to put on a tour especially for us. The lady who did the tour was very jolly and seemed to know everything there was to know about the shelters. The way that we could wander around the labyrinth of tunnels and see objects such as bunk beds and 16-​seater toilets (!) made it simple to imagine what life would have been like down there during WWII, although there sadly was no acting or role play as described by Alison B.
At £3.95 for adults and £2.95 for concessions I’d definitely recommend a visit to this attraction, particularly for school children studying WWII.

I had cause to visit the Stockport Air Raid Shelters Tour recently as a parent helper with a local school. It was AMAZING! This is an actual remaining second world war air raid facility that has been preserved and now opened up again as a ‘living museum’. The shelters are literally long caves that were hollowed out of the sandstone beneath Stockport during World War 2, and in their hayday would have provided shelter to around 3000 people during air raids in the 1940’s. Not all of the shelters have been opened up, but many bits of it have been restored including the sick-​bay, corridors where bunk beds were available to those sheltering, and the make-​shift kitchens and prison cells which were part of this little underground city.
The tour is excellent, and on the occasion that I was there was conducted by two actors, one playing the part of an ARP warden and the other, a nurse. The tour was full of facts, interesting activities and role-​playing, all of which captivated the minds of the class of 9 year olds that I accompanied there. I’d highly recommend the shelters tour to anyone, especially those with kids, and given that it is underground, you’ll never need to worry about the weather!