Remaining WW2 Relics

  Another from underground Reading - Calcot ARP Wardens Post This was another local find very similar design to the Tilehurst ARP Wardens Post and the Emmer Green ARP & Whitley's ARP. Access was granted by lifting up a rusty manhole cover and climbing down the frame of the shelter due to the main entrance being bricked up. When i approached the manhole cover i knew there was going to be a shelter down there due to me having an old map of all the Reading ARP Shelter locations. I then rushed to open it hoping it was going to be a different but it seemed very similar to the others i have visited, but that never put me off from going down into it and documenting! Dangling off the edge into the shelter, i slowly approached the frame of it and started to make my way down, with rust crumbling in my hands, this shows its age! the rust turned out to mainly be original paint work on the frame. As soon as i got down, i had a quick mooch around to see if it had any golden gems that others ...

 The shelter is situated behind a now disused Library in Whitley which was originally at one point in its life the ARP Headquarters Group during the Second World War. Whitley Library was built in 1935 in a classical and confident municipal style building made from red bricks and a lovely bath stone cartouche at the very top which says Library written on it. A few years after opening all the locals were involved in a desperate struggle for our nations very existence. The Library then became a local ARP Wardens HQ in 1940s with a underground post around the back rear of the building. Sadly during World War Two several Whitley residents were killed or injured in the air raid on the town in 1943. A library in these sad times would have been useful as a important refuge and the ordered symmetry of this building would have stood out as the architecture of hope.  The Library does still remain today but being repurposed. Further down the road from here is Rabsons Recreational Ground w...