A Hotel in Wartime: Sutton, in Surrey

When war broke out-I was in norfolk-at my grandmothers hotel in Norfolk-soon after that I went home to by mothers hotel in Sutton.
She must have some idea that war was coming because in 1938-she had had a large underground shelter built just outside our back door-this shelter had a reinforced concrete roof about 36ins thick and had a door at each end with seven handles on-it was a type submarine door and was meant to be gas proof-in the shelter were bunk beds that could take up to 30 people-there was water and food stored as well.
THe shelter was used quite a lot during the blitz-the guests would all come down in the evening when the sirens sounded and stay until the all clear-the hotel was never hit during the war and the shelter survived until 1959 when the hotel was sold for redevelopment.
There was a near miss durung 1940 when a bomb fell at the end of the garden-we had a long conservatory at the back of the hotel and this was somehow moved away from the main wall without damaging the glass-strange.
one of the main things we used to find in the garden-which was about two acres-were old incendary bombs and a lot of shrapnel

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.