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Wednesday, July 23, 2008, 08:00
Patios and ponds are all very well, but for John and Kate Dougherty and their two children, the best feature outside their home in Rodborough Avenue is an underground concrete bunker.
The roughly six feet square room beneath some flower pots is reached by going down stairs. It has a ground level window and even still has its own gently rusting metal chimney.
“It's a novelty,” said Mrs Dougherty, who was struck by the unusual relic when she and her husband first viewed their house a few years ago.
“We always show people. When guests come they get taken around,” said trainer Mrs Dougherty, 43.
Her husband, also 43, well known as a children's author, musician and poet, said he thought the shelter was great.
“It's lovely to have a piece of history under the garden,” said Mr Dougherty who is keen to preserve the air raid shelter.
“I would be interested to hear if it was every used, if there was ever an air raid warning in Stroud?”
Children Noah, who is aged almost eight, and Cara, nearly six, are free to play in the shelter.
“It is fun. It is like a dungeon . . . sometimes we pretend it is the beginning of a secret underground passageway,” said Noah who with his sister attends Wynstone's School near Gloucester.
The Dougherty's house was built around 1912 and history books say that the shelter was added during the Second World War when the War Office had people billeted there.
Three neighbouring properties also had air raid shelters, but the Dougherty's is now the last still remaining.
The shelter was visited by a couple of dozen people during the recent “Celebrating Rodborough Parish” open gardens and properties trail.
Organiser Fran Law lived at the Dougherty's house for 15 years before them and said her three sons loved growing up there.
“They used to have terrific fun playing the battle of Rodborough in the shelter,” Mrs Law said.
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