EKCO Southend WW2 Air Raid Shelters Part 1

By Chris Poole – September 2008

At the beginning of 1939, it was obvious that there was soon going to be another war and that this time air power and bombing would play a dominant role based on the experience of 'Guernica' during the Spanish Civil war where in one afternoon in April 1937 three quarters of the town was destroyed and some 1650 people died with circa 900 injured.

EKCO therefore began a program of building shelters, which were a mixture of surface and underground shelters right across the site and it is believed that some 26 shelters in total were built that together could provide shelter for the entire workforce estimated to be circa 3,000 people (including the Plastic's site).

This 1939 photograph shows one of the underground shelters being dug

It was very fortuitous that these air raid shelters were built since they played an important part in ensuring the safety of the staff throughout WW2 although thank goodness no bombs were ever dropped on the factory despite the firm being directly targeted by the Luftwaffe as evidenced by a target map of the E.K. Cole works discovered in the Luftwaffe archives after the war.

The EKCO site is located in the top left hand corner – outlined in yellow for easier identification.

In late May 2008, with the demolition of the main EKCO site at Priory Crescent Southend beginning, access was given to the site to try and ascertain if any of these WW2 era shelters still existed, and if they did to try and get an idea of the extent of the shelters while at the same time trying to establish where shelters were, if no longer present.

To aid the hunt a 1946 aerial photo taken by the RAF was used, which when magnified up provided many clues of possible locations and in addition to this, there were peoples memories of there being air raid shelters at various locations and my own personal memory of a large underground shelter, which I had visited in the 1960's while employed in an adjacent building to the location of this shelter.

Marked up 1946 aerial photograph taken by the RAF in May of that year

The 1946 aerial photo above not only shows the roof of all the buildings still camouflage painted but also more importantly, reveals the area where two large shelters were.

The shelter adjacent to where I worked is the L/H location and was primarily located so as to give shelter access to the drawing office staff, the R&D staff and the office staff. It is believed that this shelter could accommodate circa 500 people although if pushed possibly 750 could squeeze in.

Original of this photograph now with Southend Museum

This shelter was under the area used as a 'on site central car park' in the 1960's, and I recall being told by the maintenance man (who showed me down the tunnel in the mid 1960's) that the reason this location had never been built on was because of the extent of the underground tunnels under the car park. From memory the 1960's entrance was through a set of trap doors set level with the ground (similar to the entrance to pub cellars) down concrete steps and into a large tunnel, which at that time still had benches and tables in place.

Accordingly, visiting the site some 38 years after last seeing it, this location was my first port of call, and to my surprise, it is still a car park although now it has a tarmac surface whereas in my day it was cinders.

Alas with the tarmac covering the area, any sign of the wooden trap doors has gone, however a chance discussion with a employee of Ecomold (formally EKCO Plastics) who was working in an adjacent (blue) building confirmed that the shelters did in fact exist up to sometime in the early 1980's when by accident a large JCB being used to demolish a redundant building fell through the cinder surface into part of the underground shelter not realising that the shelter was there. At the time this caused much hilarity and ribbing but once the JCB was recovered, the whole surface of the car park was scraped off revealing the network of shelter accommodation below, which was then filled in with rubble, compacted down and then tarmac coated.

The shelter behind the main assembly/production hall (the right hand location) was designed to give quick access to all the workers in that building and it is believed that this shelter could also hold between 500 and 750 people.

This shelter is known to have been filled in sometime in the early 1950's when building expansion work for what was known as the Willow Run was going on and this 'Willow Run' was taken over by EKCO Plastics when TV/Radio moved out in 1966 and are now simply known as buildings 22 and 23.

The only hope of ever finding remains of either of these shelters is that during the demolition of the site or the re-development some evidence is uncovered pointing to the access points or to the shelters themselves.

Given the number of people 'on site' however, it is evident that there must have been substantially more shelters than these two locations and after talking to a member of the EKCO home Guard detachment who was on site from 1942 onwards he told me of numerous 'surface shelters' dotted around the site all of which were brick built on a concrete foundation and had a concrete roof. He told me that most of these were located along the eastern road – adjacent to the railway line with more along the western road – adjacent to the sports field. Alas he also said that at the end of the war these were quickly demolished.

Arising from this and knowing what to look for, using the same 1946 overhead photo, there is clear evidence of what could be concrete pads around the site, these being the foundations for these surface shelters. Below is the same photo with suspected concrete pads identified although there must have been more shelters than these indicated?

The photo evidence that more shelters existed is confirmed by a wartime photo (1943) taken from the roof of the main office block looking to the rear of the site and in this photo what is thought to be a surface shelter can clearly be seen in the middle distance behind the bike shed although the roof line does not conform to a standard line and a small upright shelter can be seen in the distance.

The original of this photograph is now with Southend Museum

A walk around the site also revealed that one possible surface shelter still exists although the structure has been modified somewhat and the door opening is far to wide but apart from this the concrete plinth the brickwork is standing on and the concrete roof are both evidence of a WW2 shelter. The only item missing is the brick wall in front of the entrance, which would have acted as an anti-blast wall protecting the entrance.

Urban myth dispelled More than one person also told me that an underground shelter was reputed to exist under or near to the main office block with an emergency exit going under the road (Priory Crescent) and coming up in Priory Park opposite the building. Accordingly since there was a certain logic to this insofar as the directors needed a shelter close by and one person said that this shelter was adjacent to the strong room so that cash etc could be secured at short notice, a hunt was instigated in the old office building before it was demolished but alas no evidence whatsoever was found pointing to a shelter. This shelter is therefore considered to be a bit of an urban myth.

Moving to the rear of the site (into what is now the plastics site), the buildings facing the sports field (adjacent to the west road) were those built between 1935 and 1937 originally as the car radio research laboratory, the TV research laboratory, a component store and the Service Department.

Sometime in the early/mid 1970's the front building (nearest Priory park) was demolished with the other buildings being re-numbered are now simply known by their numbers, being buildings 8, 9, and 10-12.

In discussion with the people still working on site it was apparent that it was well known that there were still tunnels, (which most people referred to as 'dungeons') under more than one of these buildings.

Of these, the building 8 shelter was filled in during the mid 1980's when the old building was demolished to be replaced by a modern and larger Unitarian industrial unit but there are three shelters under building 10/12, which still exist and the largest one is very similar to the filled in building 8 shelter.

A quick examination showed that rather than be tunnels or dungeons, these were at one time air raid shelters with the longest having many changes of direction (to deflect blast damage) and evidence of toilet facilities.

General view of shelter – Photo source Piers Day

General view of one of the shelters under building 11. This is the largest shelter under this building is estimated to have been capable of seating circa 175 people and together with two slightly smaller shelters accommodated the entire workforce of this building (numbering some 300 people) under this building.

During the war this building, which had been designed and built in 1935/6 as the Service Department was a transformer manufacturing shop, making transformers of all shapes and sizes complete from coil winding through to encapsulation. Interestingly the transformers were not just for EKCO products, but they also made transformers for the wartime Utility radios - although these were not made by EKCO.

Steps to emergency escape hatch which came up outside the building
Photograph courtesy of Piers Day

One retired former employee who started work in the building in 1942 as a lad of 14 well remembers diving down the shelters when the sirens went off and he and a couple of fellow young lads would race down first and dog open the escape hatches to get fresh air flowing through the tunnels, they would then sit outside on the edge of the hatch with their legs dangling down watching for a raid to develop and only dive back down into the shelter if it looked likely the works were under attack.

He said that with normal air raid alerts there was no real problem getting all the people underground in ample time and this was well rehearsed, however in 1944 when the V2 rocket attacks started there was a real problem since the first they knew of an attack was to hear the detonation (there were a few around Southend) and only then would the sirens go off. This caused some degree of panic especially with some of the women and he said there was quite a problem getting these women underground.

Based on the assumption that the filled in shelter under building 8 was the same size, as these shelters under building 10/11 this meant that the two buildings between them could accommodate at least 500 people.

Based on these assumptions, shelter accommodation for circa 2,000 people can now be accounted for but this number does not count the number of people who would have used surface shelters so the hunt continues.

Giving the alert Since the site covers a large area and working inside the factory would have been quite noisy, EKCO (along with all other companies) instigated a roster of firewatchers who would sound off the air raid sirens around the site as well as on the internal 'tannoy' system so as to hopefully give people ample time to get to their allocated shelters.

The following photo shows the firewatchers hut, which was situated on the roof of the main office block.

The original of this photograph is now with Southend Museum

Apart from sounding off the air raid alarms, the primary duty of the firewatchers was to keep an eye open for incendiary bombs falling on the site and direct the home guard and firemen to the location so that these could be dealt with before they took hold. For this EKCO had both their own detachment of the home guard as well as firemen.

The EKCO fire brigade detachment on a wartime training exercise

It is rumoured, although not confirmed that one of the Southend Fire Engines was stationed 'on site' during the war and there is a certain logic to this since Southend Itself from 1940 to 1944 was an evacuation zone, which meant that many of the townsfolk were encouraged to move out of the area for the duration and those who were left had to have a permit, this would have meant that Southend Fire Brigade could have spared a tender for placement 'on site'.

A false trail Early in the exploration of the site, next to the central car park is a pavement, which runs for some considerable distance North-South through the site.

What is interesting about this pavement are the glass portholes set into the pavement begging the question 'why are they there?' with the answer being that the only conceivable reason somebody would go to the trouble of putting portholes in was to provide lighting to an underground chamber, which could well have been an air raid shelter linked to the ones known to have existed in the area.

Eventually, permission was given to lift various manhole covers, which showed that rather than being a air raid shelter, there was in fact a 5 foot wide by 6 foot deep brick built service tunnel carrying a large diameter lagged pipe, which was identified as a steam pipe as well as air lines and a water supply pipe. Tracing the steam line back, it was ascertained that it went to the old boiler house, which existed at one time although demolished in the 1970's.

Postscript In October 1971, the local newspaper reported that workmen clearing out 'an underground vault' as part of the preparation work prior to 'The Joint Credit Card Company' (Access Credit Card) moving onto the site came across 4 wooden crates. When opened the crates contained Phosgene (mustard) gas glass phials, incendiary bombs, magnesium flares and smoke bombs. The police were called who in turn had to call out bomb disposal who took them away.

The thinking at the time was that these were left behind by the home guard who would have used them in exercises. Frustratingly, there is no clue as to the location of this 'vault' as its described but if anybody can add to this story, please contact us.

Part Two