Visited with: @UrbanZ
History:
Brooklands history is so vast and easily obtainable, even having a museum solely dedicated to it's conservation, that I have only included a short overview.
Brooklands was a 2 3/4 mile racing track in surrey. It opened in 1907 and was the world's first purpose-built motor racing circuit as well as one of Britain's first airfields, which also became Britain's largest aircraft manufacturing center by 1918.
In August 1914 with the declaration of war on Germany, Brooklands and all its services including the race track were taken over by the war office and a military flying school was formed. During WW2 Vickers-Armstrongs' built shelters on the site to protect its workforce after predicting airstrikes, one of these capable of holding up to 5000 people.
The last race was held in 1939. Since then, many sections have been chopped through or built upon, and is currently inhabited with a museum or well known companies such as Argos, BAE Systems (formally Vickers-Armstrongs), Currys-PC World, John Lewis and many more. It still retains it's self a major aviation and motoring hub for vintage cars, motorcycle and other transport-related events.
Explore:
By far the trickiest part of this explore was trying to traverse our way to the site avoiding the River Wey, "Danger of Death. High Voltage Lines" signposted bridges, or an £11 each museum fee!
But a few attempts later we finally found a much easier way in, or so we thought...
After setting foot in what we believed was the original entrance to the bunker, it quickly became apparent we'd stumbled upon something completely different. Another section of the shelter on the opposite side of the track perhaps!?
(This was an unexpected find and one I'm currently researching, so may update).
The first shelter has three parallel NW facing passageways with archways inbetween running underneath the racetrack, and contains one of the most extensive collections of new and used car tyres I have ever seen. Albeit none in a size I require, typical.
Due to the monotonous layout of the shelter, it not being what we were searching for, and someone's dodgy gut forcing a hasty retreat (a stark reminder to always carry my respirator), we didn't spend long in here, hence the lack of photos.
Exiting the shelter and quickly checking our sources again we immediately headed for our original goal, which was found so easily we started questioning ourselves as to if this was really it.
For some reason there was a mass of pigeon corpses littering the floor directly inside the entrance, so I didn't wish to set-up my camera here, but I'm glad to report much of the old machinery found in the first report of the site, circa 1990, still remains, as does the blast from the past air raid date and frequency writings on the wall from the occupants during WW2, benches, newspapers... but unfortunately no page 3.
Onto the pics:
30° Home Banking section of track.
Stairs leading down from track.
Tyres for as far as the eye can see.
Machinery in first shelter, main passageway.
More wheels/tyres.
Old Switches.
Looking back at first shelter entrance.
Looking back at second shelter entrance.
Old benches and misc after turning first corner.
Air raid date and frequency list.
Day shift list.
31 year old note.
Paper dated Thursday, March 24, 1983.
Bricked up final passageway.
Thanks for looking.
History:
Brooklands history is so vast and easily obtainable, even having a museum solely dedicated to it's conservation, that I have only included a short overview.
Brooklands was a 2 3/4 mile racing track in surrey. It opened in 1907 and was the world's first purpose-built motor racing circuit as well as one of Britain's first airfields, which also became Britain's largest aircraft manufacturing center by 1918.
In August 1914 with the declaration of war on Germany, Brooklands and all its services including the race track were taken over by the war office and a military flying school was formed. During WW2 Vickers-Armstrongs' built shelters on the site to protect its workforce after predicting airstrikes, one of these capable of holding up to 5000 people.
The last race was held in 1939. Since then, many sections have been chopped through or built upon, and is currently inhabited with a museum or well known companies such as Argos, BAE Systems (formally Vickers-Armstrongs), Currys-PC World, John Lewis and many more. It still retains it's self a major aviation and motoring hub for vintage cars, motorcycle and other transport-related events.
Explore:
By far the trickiest part of this explore was trying to traverse our way to the site avoiding the River Wey, "Danger of Death. High Voltage Lines" signposted bridges, or an £11 each museum fee!
But a few attempts later we finally found a much easier way in, or so we thought...
After setting foot in what we believed was the original entrance to the bunker, it quickly became apparent we'd stumbled upon something completely different. Another section of the shelter on the opposite side of the track perhaps!?
(This was an unexpected find and one I'm currently researching, so may update).
The first shelter has three parallel NW facing passageways with archways inbetween running underneath the racetrack, and contains one of the most extensive collections of new and used car tyres I have ever seen. Albeit none in a size I require, typical.
Due to the monotonous layout of the shelter, it not being what we were searching for, and someone's dodgy gut forcing a hasty retreat (a stark reminder to always carry my respirator), we didn't spend long in here, hence the lack of photos.
Exiting the shelter and quickly checking our sources again we immediately headed for our original goal, which was found so easily we started questioning ourselves as to if this was really it.
For some reason there was a mass of pigeon corpses littering the floor directly inside the entrance, so I didn't wish to set-up my camera here, but I'm glad to report much of the old machinery found in the first report of the site, circa 1990, still remains, as does the blast from the past air raid date and frequency writings on the wall from the occupants during WW2, benches, newspapers... but unfortunately no page 3.
Onto the pics:
30° Home Banking section of track.
Stairs leading down from track.
Tyres for as far as the eye can see.
Machinery in first shelter, main passageway.
More wheels/tyres.
Old Switches.
Looking back at first shelter entrance.
Looking back at second shelter entrance.
Old benches and misc after turning first corner.
Air raid date and frequency list.
Day shift list.
31 year old note.
Paper dated Thursday, March 24, 1983.
Bricked up final passageway.
Thanks for looking.
Thanks for sharing. After seeing this, went to visit too! 
