Duncan McKellar opens one door with a set of keys, pushes another, and then walks down a set of stairs into one of the most astonishing spaces in Bristol.
This space is even more amazing because it is so close to where thousands of people walk by and work every single day without even knowing it is here.
Underneath St Nick’s Market is a former air raid shelter used during the Second World War.
It remains mostly hidden for now, but Duncan has ambitious plans to turn it into a museum and an experience to remember the Bristol Blitz, in which 1,299 people were killed.
Duncan already leads tours down into the space on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays but would love to see the former shelter once again full of people.
When not leading the tours, he has spent hours clearing up decades of gathered detritus and bringing down items from the period, including helmets, gas masks, and maps, and even a replica incendiary bomb which caused so much damage on the streets above.
On a recent Saturday afternoon after one of his tours, Duncan takes a seat in what used to be the underground city valuers bar during the 1950s, where members of bands like the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and the Who might have drunk after performing at the Corn Exchange upstairs – but that’s another story.
“We have the biggest public air raid shelter in the city center that is finally now for the first time open to the public. We are running tours at the moment with the long-term plan to establish a museum which will preserve and display the air raid shelter, not just Bristol’s important history but national heritage.
And it’s the home front which I think is particularly interesting because everyone who has family links in Bristol will have a link to what happened here and what is now on display here.”
During the tours, Duncan shows artifacts relating to wartime home front activity, focusing on medical equipment, warning signals, bells and rattles, and rationing – as well as greeting a ghost called Margaret.
On November 24, 1940, the heart of Bristol’s old town was destroyed with the densely packed area in what is now Castle Park engulfed in flames.
It is sobering to think that men, women, and children were sheltering here that same night and then would have emerged from this very air raid shelter just a few yards away from that devastation, with only the shells of St Mary le Port Church and St Peter’s Church now remaining.
Duncan tells the story of a false alarm earlier that same day when a reconnaissance plane flew over the city and caused the sirens to go off, with people – many of whom would have been in town shopping – heading down into the shelter before the all-clear, with 186 German bombers returning that night.
