Nazi bunker in my garden......

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by b0dyr0ck2006, Mar 1, 2012.

  1. Sunday 15th June

    After last weekend's adventure, I actually decided to spend a quieter one with the family. When I started this thread it was not, believe it or not, my intention to actually uncover nazi riches, or end up providing a modicum of global entertainment (some 140,000 blog hits in the last 3 days!). As a proud PH'er, it was really just to show some heavy machinery, some impetuous digging, and a large hole / potential garage under the garden.Over the weekend, I've linked to and read discussions on various other threads around the world discussing my bunker. The majority of them are positive. Many are critical about the length of this original thread , some can't see what all the fuss is about at all. The truth is that no thought on my part really went into the events of last week. I happened to have a good bunch of friends who were able to provide help, or gain access to the equipment needed. It was undoubtedly the spontaneous nature of the discovery and its reporting which made it fun for both us, and for you lot.I've had half a dozen approaches from TV people, and several for news items. Dave is on a T-shirt and has fans! I don't think he's forgiven me.However, as I mentioned a couple of dozen pages ago now, its come to the stage where things are going to have to go a bit slower, and some thought does now need to be put in. I'm not about to start smashing up my garage :p , or risk doing anything unsafe. Its certainly not over yet. In fact its only really just started.I'm going to be making good the tunnel, and that doesn't really lend itself to daily, or even weekly, news updates! Some things may indeed take a while to accomplish and I don't want this to become a thread where I start posting "a man forgot to turn up today to measure up for the lighting" updates. If the tunnel ends up as a swish bat-cave style garage, then I'll be sure to invite Pistonheads round to have a nosey. Of course, if I find out anything else interesting at the house or while the further work is being carried out (and I hope we do), then I'll let you all know. I'll also give an update if the historians come back with any interesting wartime information. I thank you all for reading and for your enthusiastic support! CY88


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  2. Right, for those who are not bored and are still following this I have an update:

    A little bit of history first....I've been doing some research since the weekend, and today I managed to track down and speak on the phone to a relative of the family who originally purchased the property immediately after the war (at a time when both my house and my next door neighbour's house occupied the same larger plot).

    During our conversation he told me some interesting things.

    Firstly, he said that it was his understanding that the tunnels (note the plural - I'll come back to that) at the property were sealed up shortly after the war - he thought it was around 1947. Unfortunately, if true, that would mean that there would have been plenty time for any good stuff to have been removed Indeed, he also said that he thought that part of the property back then had been used by the Germans as an armoury of sorts, and he said that he recalled that the authorities (the British Forces) came onto the site after the war and took a lot of munitions away. Perhaps this explains the presence of British rifles? When I asked about why the tunnels had been sealed he said that he thought his relative had been concerned about safety in general, although when I then explained the location of the tunnel that I have found, he said that that wasn't the one that one that caused the main concern He then recounted that the British army had been called in to investigate another tunnel which purportedly ran back unerground into the hillside. He said that there was talk that this was a long tunnel, which might link up elsewhere, and that after the soldiers had done their inspection, they collapsed the rockface and sealed up the entrances. Could this, i wondered, explain the large spread of spoil in between the excavated tunnel entrance and the garage, which also extends behind the garage (the pyramid shaped part of the slope on which the pine trees are growing)?

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    Now the sort of tunnelling that the Germans built into solid rock was a very different affair to what I have found so far. And anyone who's visited the German Underground hospital here will know what these can sometimes look like: http://www.digitaljersey.co.uk/tourism/H08/index.html

    Who knows what is hidden under those rocks then? Whatever is there, its certainly well buriedHe also mentioned that there was an underground room which had been used by the Germans somewhere behind the house, which had later been used as a water tank. That prompted me to lift some man hole covers, specifically this one....


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    which revealed...


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    A brick vaulted chamber, filled almost to the top with what appeared to be builders rubble, rubbish and dirty water. Nice! I've no idea how deep it is at the moment, but can only assume that it was filled by lazy builders when the property was extended in the 80s.

    The last thing he told me was that another relative might be able tell me more, and promptly gave me his email abroad, so I've dropped him a line too Finally, I also made another (unrelated - I think) military find. Although I've lived at this house for a few years now, it is still yielding some interesting discoveries.

    When poking around in an old shed yesterday, I found this:


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    Some of you may wonder how I could be so patently unobservant to have missed it before. Well the truth is, it was under a pile of old wood, junk and spiderwebs, and I hate spiders. But I thought it now needed to be checked. So I opened it, genuinely not sure what I would find, only to see it was empty. What was interesting though was the fact it still looked new inside, and that the packing label was still clearly legible.


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  3. Hatch..... ? All in good time

    Believe it or not, I hadn't accurately measured the dimensions of the bunker until today. In the interests of scale then, while we knew it was 60 feet long, I now know that it's 120 inches (10 feet) wide at the entrance (measured between the concrete base walls), tapering in slightly to around 115 inches wide at the rear. It's 96 inches (8 feet) high to the centre of the ceiling arch, and slightly lower at the rear (the floor slopes to the entrance, presumably to ensure drainage).
     
  4. An update from the weekend. [/size]You'll know by now that we can't dig unless we clear first. Dave came round this afternoon and we finally spent an hour or so making a little progress. The slope of collapsed rock, which is the next area we're focussing on, now has a load a fir trees growing on it. They're actually fairly tall. Before I'm able to do any more excavating of this area, the trees (or at least the largest shown here below beforehand) will have to go.


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    The aim is to drop it down accurately between those two shrubs in the foreground without damaging them. Dave dons his special safety helmet (which actually did protect him from a falling pine cone).


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    And then climbs up the spoil to the base of the trunk.....


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    Where he started by stripping some of the lower branches.


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    Before downing tools and refusing to do the chain-sawing. So it was left to me, to make a classic wedge cut at the front of the tree and then the single cut at the back.....


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    What happened next though was unexpected comedy. The tree gracefully fell to 45 degrees, stopped and hung there! Rather like the toppled statute of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.


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    We then all watched bemused as it sank several more feet in extra slow motion before the trunk finally cracked and it dropped to the ground. Someone took a video which I'll upload onto the blog later. After that Dave went back to work and chopped it up.


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    I did say that the next bit was going to involve "just a little bit" more work, didn't I?
     
  5. No more for along time, then:


    Tuesday 9th June 2009

    I've been mulling recently over a particular detail of last year's events which I didn't at the time reveal. In fact, the incident probably had a bearing on the momentum of my excavation plans, and caused much discussion among a close circle of people that I revealed it to. For the sake of completeness (and this thread flashing up again) I thought that I'd recount a little about it now.

    About a week or two after we'd opened the bunker, when interest was at its peak, I had a phone call from an excited chap who introduced himself as a historian.

    He asked if he could come round and have a look. I agreed. He asked if he could come straight away (i think it was about 7.00pm). Given that my enthusiam was still running at a high I agreed, and about half an hour later he arrived, bringing with him a friend who had what I can only describe as an industrial size hand held spotlight (5 million lumen?).

    They pulled up and got out of the car, and immediately started surveying the garden, asking lots of questions about orientation of the land, water courses, drainage, whether I knew the history of the property etc etc. They asked if they could have a good look around the garden before looking inside the bunker, and I left them to it for a few minutes.

    The historian was, at a guess, in his early 60s, and had long thinning grey hair. He was wearing (no joke) a heavily patinaed Indiana Jones style leather jacket and desert boots.

    They got extremely excited whilst looking at the aerial photos from the war that I'd handed them. They commented in quiet voices to themselves about the fact that there appeared to have been a warehouse built at the southern end of the property at the latter stages of the war. They pointed at the collapsed northern quarryface. I strained my ears and heard the historian in hushed discussion with his colleague asking "why would the germans have done that, whilst their army was in retreat across Europe at that time, when the occupying forces were preparing to surrender?" "What did they have to hide?"

    Shortly afterwards, when they were walking abck towards me, i overheard other man say to the the historian, "Do you think this could really be the place?"

    The historian told me he'd spent his whole life scouring every german fortification and bunker in the Channel Islands, and had never come across details of the one in my garden before. It was getting darker and I noticed that his air of excitement had not abated.

    We then climbed down inside the bunker, and they were very interested in the fact that the entrance to the bunker faced north towards the quarry face, and not south, which they noted would have provided an easier entrance. We discussed the rumours about a longer tunnel that existing in the vicinty (which I did post about). He told me that some people were not quite so open to believing the rumours as others, and the two of them discussed something I couldn't hear between themselves again.

    They'd been at the house quite some time by this stage, and I invited them inside the house to show them the photos that I'd taken of the excavation that we'd been doing, which were on the computer. Again, further interest.

    The historian then asked if I'd had any contact from the media. I said I'd had several approaches. He then leant in and quietly suggested that for the moment I might perhaps play my cards close to my chest until some more research was done.

    He then spent some consideration time telling me about avenues of investigation open to him through official records offices and archived military resources. He suggested to me some avenues of enquiry i might undetake (some of which I have explored and posted about, others which I have not).

    By this stage it was dark and late. The visitors had been at the house several hours, and showed no signs of leaving. I decided to politely suggest we carry on our discussions another time, and the historian apologised, explaining this was his passion and that he sometimes got carried away with himself.

    I walked out to the car with them, and as the historian was getting in through the door, he again reminded me to be cautious about taking up any offers of assistance just yet. He then leant into the car, opened the glovebox, and told me that he was going to show me something.

    He then held out to me a rolled up clutch of old papers covered in manuscript notes. He gestured me to take them. I asked what they were? He smiled and suggested take them and read them. As I took the string bound paperwork, he got in the car and shut the door. Then, as he drove off, he leant out out of the window and shouted "When you've read them, get in touch and we'll talk some more!".

    I went back inside, thinking how slightly surreal the whole experience had been. Then I poured myself a drink, sat down, and unrolled the papers, flattening them in a small pile on the desktop.

    Slowly I read the first page. Then the second. I took another slug of drink and scratched my head in disbelief. I read the third and laughed to myself in excitement. After the fourth I got up and had to walk around the room.

    Before reading further I got on the phone to Dave. I re-read the first four pages to him, before continuing through page after page of notes. When i eventually finished, Dave asked whether I thought it was for real? I told him I honestly didn't know. In fact, I still don't know....
     
  6. Wednesday 15th July 2009

    You remember the bit behind the garage... (shown in the background below).

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    Well we cleared a whole lot more trees all over that last month...


    (spot the lovely caper anyone?)
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    A little bit of exploration

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    Plans are afoot gents. Things are just moving slowly.

    ETA: I forgot the interesting bit. Last week my neighbour came round and said... "we had such an interesting day yesterday. We came home to find on old chap in his 80s sat on our doorstep". Turns out he was a child who had lived in the neighbours house during the war, left behind when his family evacuated, and was over in the Island on holiday last week and wanted to see it again!!!! And I missed him!!!!! I am going to get his number and get in touch to see what he remembers about my place. Apparently there were 35 German soldiers billeted in the neighbours house.


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    The bus is a '67 splitscreen, formerly out of California, which I purchased through Pistonheads classifieds. Its pretty much original spec at the moment with a Westfalia interior and little pop-top. Coincidentally the clutch is slowly going, and seeing as the engine will be coming out when that gets changed, it would indeed be rude not to upgrade it as suggested above At the moment its the original 1500cc.


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  7. Monday 7th June 2010

    Serious kit this time..... 13.5 tonne digger
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    "going over the top"
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  8. Wednesday 9th June 2010

    Just a quick update as i am at work. There were problems the night before last when a sheet of rockface above the spot that had been excavated collapsed back down into the area the digger was working in. We had a geo-engineer in yesterday and another meeting today hopefully with my structural engineer. The digger has not therefore been doing any more work in that area for now. Gutted to be honest [/size] What was uncovered is hidden again! I should say that the heavy plant is on site to start the development that i've had pending over the last year, so it will be put to work doing that in the meantime. I'm afraid I have been working too, so have not been able to take pics at every step along the way like last time. Sorry if not exactly the news that you were hoping for!Anyway...Before:


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    Essentially I've been told that the quarry has been de-stabilised by the roots from all those big trees that had grown over the cliff top over the years (but which have now been cut down)
     
  9. Great stuff. Thanks for posting all this stuff, Mr Rock!
     
  10. Wednesday 9th June 2010

    In any event, I now appear to have a meeting with 3 engineers (structural, geotechnical and a consultant engineering geologist) on site tomorrow.


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    Thursday 10th June 2010

    Essentially the following has happened today. The geologist guy has basically conducted a full geological survey of the cliff face where we dug. He spent the time on ropes on the cliff face cataloging each of the various fault lines. The rock has basically been penetrated by the roots of the vegetation, which has made fractures worse in places. He had two rope men with him for H&S. Several more chunks of rock have fallen again today.

    He's then going to spend another day compiling a full report which will recommend where pins need to be sunk for the netting which all agree seems to be necessary, how deep and whether any further pieces need to be removed. He'll also work out the load bearings necessary for any retaining wall. The report will then advise on a plan of remedial works to stabilise the cliff, and this work will be warranted. Fingers crossed results come over the weekend.

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    Thursday 17th June 2010


    (In shock)

    Geo survey is back. Estimated quote for remedial works = £40K.

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    Friday 18th June 2010


    Just a little update. Basically the prelim report that I have is that the upper part of the rockface is covered in joint fractures that "create the potential for medium to large scale planar sliding and wedge sliding failures", with a high risk of harm to persons / property within the site. "Cutting further will siginficantly increase the risk of failure".

    So to answer some questions. I can't really dig or remove any more without serious risks, and I'm not prepared to take them. The remedial work involves either removing literally hundreds of tonnes of rock and significantly changing the lie of the land (+possible issues with neighbouring land), with the distinct possibility that even once that is done further risks will be uncovered and shoring up will still be necessary (see option 2). Alternatively, option 2 involves shoring up what is there with nets and rock piles (maybe even shockcrete) and then building a great big retaining wall secured with rock anchors to hold it all back.

    To be honest, the more we look into it, the more it looks like it may have to be option 2. And if that is the case, everything there will effectively be sealed for good
     
  11. This is awesome

    Thanks
     
  12. Tuesday 12th July 2011

    'thing is anything i post will simply prompt more questions..... its catch 22!

    And it'll spoil the script

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  13. This is brilliant!! Get on with it man!!!! :thinking:
     
  14. I wanna know what the paper work is the historian guy gave him ???
     
  15. Keep em coming, I got to page 97 on the original thread in about 1 hour 30 mins so what you are doing is an awesome job.

    K+ coming your way.
     
  16. Tuesday 12th July 2011

     
  17. So thats it guys and girls. 223 pages, 4460 posts. broken right down, but there is so much more info to read through the thread.


    That was the last update and clearly a lot has been going on that CY88 just cant/wont tell anybody.

    Still too many questions left unanswered:

    What was under the hatch in the bunker?

    What did those papers say that the historian left?

    What is behind the door that has been dug up?

    What is that big tunnel under the rock face?


    Now it must have been something very important or worth a lot of money, or the story was worth a lot. The cost of the project just for the remedial work was valued at over £40K and CY88 spend a few thousand before that.

    Then you have the excavations that have been going on since that are going to have cost a pretty penny too.
     
  18. So what did the old excited historian geezer think it was? The Ark of the Covenant or something?
     
  19. foe

    foe

    Amazing!! :thumbsup:
     

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