Sewer Air Raid Shelter
A serious proposal to the issue of providing refuge to the residents of Hastings in the event of an air raid was the sewer carrying the Alexandra Park streams to an outfall opposite Denmark Place.[1]
Detail of Sewer
The section of the sewer is 7 feet in diameter, lined in concrete, some 40 feet underground, and which runs to the sea opposite the Carlisle Hotel. Its course is beneath Wellington Square, South Terrace, Earl Street, the north part of the Gasworks yard, and beneath the railway to Alexandra Park, and its primary purpose is to take the Park stream and other storm water, and so avert the nuisance flooding in the centre of the town during periods of excessive rainfall.[1] The tunnel was bored from both ends, meeting in the middle on the 6th Dec 1937.[2]
Conversion to Shelter
If the proposal to use the sewer for air raid shelter purposes had been adopted, seven entrances would have been made at the following points:—[1]
- The Carlisle Hotel;
- near Mcllroys premises;
- Wellington Square gardens (two entrances);
- near the Central Cricket Ground (two entrances); and
- near the entrance to Alexandra Park.
The series of manholes which permit maintenance entry to the sewer would have provided useful emergency exits, and natural ventilation for the tunnel. The tunnel would have functioned for its original purpose of conveying storm water until war conditions prevailed, when the storm water would have been diverted into the old courses, with, of course, the old results in bad weather.[1]
