This was no garden-variety discovery.
A British family has been shocked to discover a World War II shelter in the garden of their home, three years after they first moved in.
“I thought ‘Oh my God, what have we found?'” Katherine Milburn, 32, told Jam Press about the hidden bunker, which is located beneath the yard of her home in the town of Southwick, England.
The British woman had been living there with her husband Liam and their two children for three years, unaware of its existence.
However, the entire time, the regional manager said he “assumed there was an underground bunker because there were a lot of bricks in the garden when we went in.”
Catherine lamented, “We renovated about 60 percent of the garden but we couldn’t find a single thing in the house, not a single piece of history.” “We were desperate to find something.”
However, the pair finally located the wartime shelter last Sunday.
“There is a piece of concrete about three meters long under a summerhouse in the garden,” said Catherine. “When we were digging it, we saw steel rods. We thought it was a bit much for a summerhouse, then we found a corrugated iron sheet.
Realizing that this was no ordinary structure, the couple kept digging through the night until they found some stairs and a water-filled tunnel, confirming their suspicions.
The unique irrigation ditch is believed to be an Anderson shelter, a special type of air raid shelter that was designed to protect British civilians from the German Luftwaffe.
The bomb-proof tunnels were buried about three feet into people’s gardens and were made of sheets of curved corrugated steel tied together at the top.
They could protect six people from shrapnel and could also withstand a 100-pound bomb falling six feet away.
While 3.2 million of these safe places were established before and during World War II, reportedly only 15 of them remain.
Katherine said she and her husband were extremely excited to have a piece of history in “our back garden.”
“We like the idea of using it and we wanted to do something different,” said Britain, who rejected plans for a greenhouse in favor of preserving the shelter.
The couple plan to drain the water and bring some light down there so they can get an idea of the underground structure.
“I will definitely be documenting it as we move forward,” Katherine said. “The kids are really excited and the school wants to have a trip here. “It is very educational for them to learn about history.”
