cane hill bunker | dispelling the myths
17|08|03




The path leads around to this steeply cut valley, now heavily wooded and overgrown. This V-shaped trough cuts across the entire man-made hill.

It’s easiest to explain this feature by talking about the bunker’s construction.

Three entrances were burrowed into the hill, all running parallel with each other (these I shall call the south, centre and north longitudinal tunnels). Most of the spoil was piled up on top of the bunker to provide further protection against a direct hit. This formed the huge wall of soil to our right. Further soil was piled on the remaining hill to the left, thus creating this trench.

The south and north bunker entrances used to terminate in this valley (all bunkers required three entrances - one main entrance and two emergency entrances. It's likely that this valley was the emergency exit). In war years, the centre tunnel also exited in this valley, but the Optical Factory (who occupied the site in the 1960s) roofed it over, so it now travels uninterrupted to the car park.

Does that make things clearer? A section view is given below in case it doesn’t.

Smorgy can be seen looking at a very interesting feature in the ground.

First though, I walked past the hidden and blocked north entrance, past Smorgy and further down the valley.