Trips Places Foods Stories Newsletters

Take your next trip with Atlas Obscura!

Our small-group adventures are inspired by our Atlas of the world's most fascinating places, the stories behind them, and the people who bring them to life.

Visit Adventures
Trips Highlight
Pastel de nata
Portugal • 8 days, 7 nights
Portugal: A Culinary Adventure from Porto to Lisbon
from
Italy • 9 days, 8 nights
Flavors of Italy: Roman Carbonara, Florentine Steak & Venetian Cocktails
from
View all trips
Top Destinations
Latest Places
Most Popular Places Random Place Lists Itineraries
Add a Place
Download the App
Top Destinations
View All Destinations »

Countries

  • Australia
  • Canada
  • China
  • France
  • Germany
  • India
  • Italy
  • Japan

Cities

  • Amsterdam
  • Barcelona
  • Beijing
  • Berlin
  • Boston
  • Budapest
  • Chicago
  • London
  • Los Angeles
  • Mexico City
  • Montreal
  • Moscow
  • New Orleans
  • New York City
  • Paris
  • Philadelphia
  • Rome
  • San Francisco
  • Seattle
  • Stockholm
  • Tokyo
  • Toronto
  • Vienna
  • Washington, D.C.
Latest Places
View All Places »
The wall commemorating 11,908 Jewish victims of the Shoah from Frankfurt.
Börneplatz Memorial
Entrance to the munitions area of the lower part of the bunker
Simserhof
Carlos Calderón Yruegas calls the villa his personal playground.
Villa Tabaiba
Apples and pears, Spitalfields Market.
Brick Lane Roundels
Latest Places to Eat & Drink
View All Places to Eat »
The sign declares this the number-one gumbo shop in town.
Gumbo Hut Shioya
The pavlova comes crowned with jewel-like fruit.
Central Park Boathouse
The Village Tavern of Long Grove - exterior.
The Village Tavern
Hunter House Hamburgers
L’Escamoteur
Recent Stories
All Stories Video Podcast
Most Recent Stories
View All Stories »
The exterior of the Hall of Records.
Atlas Obscura Mailbag: Urban Exploration, Illegal Carvings, and Repeat Vacations
about 18 hours ago
Biosphere 2 campus (2016)
Biosphere 2: How Volunteers Survived for 2 Years in an Airtight Habitat
1 day ago
Places like Forest Grove linger on the edge of wilderness and civilization.
Listening for Echoes of the Forest Grove Sound
1 day ago
Longwood House, where Napoleon Bonaparte spent his final years.
The Longwood House: Napoleon Bonaparte’s Beautiful Prison
2 days ago

No search results found for
“”

Make sure words are spelled correctly.

Try searching for a travel destination.

Places near me Random place

Popular Destinations

  • Paris
  • London
  • New York
  • Berlin
  • Rome
  • Los Angeles
Trips Places Foods Stories Newsletters
Sign In Join
Places near me Random place
All the United Kingdom England Cleethorpes Cleethorpes Air Raid Shelter

Cleethorpes Air Raid Shelter

The first privately owned air raid shelter in Britain, built after a horrifying night of Zeppelin bombings.

Cleethorpes, England

Added By
kelvin1084
Email
Been Here
Want to go
Added to list
Cleethorpes Air Raid Shelter   kelvin1084 / Atlas Obscura User
Cleethorpes Air Raid Shelter   kelvin1084 / Atlas Obscura User
Cleethorpes Air Raid Shelter   kelvin1084 / Atlas Obscura User
Cleethorpes Air Raid Shelter   kelvin1084 / Atlas Obscura User
Cleethorpes Air Raid Shelter   kelvin1084 / Atlas Obscura User
Been Here
Want to go
Added to list

About

Less than a minute’s walk from the Cleethorpes seafront, behind one of the many old, terraced streets that snake from the shoreline, is a curious building of robust design. Constructed during World War I, this strange cement block is actually an air raid shelter built specifically to protect from Zeppelin attacks.

The shelter was commissioned in 1916 by Joseph Forrester to protect his family and is the first privately constructed air raid shelter in England. Forrester, a councillor and chemist of some renown, achieved national fame for his Forrester's Ferric Food tonic, which he brewed at the rear of his store in Cleethorpes.

The shelter’s walls are half a meter thick and were designed to withstand a blast from one of the 25 pound bombs that were regularly carried by German Zeppelins. Forrester was urged into building his shelter after a particularly bloody attack on Cleethorpes and Grimsby in April, 1916.

During the early days of WWI, the German military, armed with their newly developed fleet of airships, began to systematically bomb cities throughout the United Kingdom. On April 1st, 1916, Kapitein-Luitenant Martin Dietrich’s Zeppelin (L22) was suffering from engine troubles. He pulled away from his planned attack route and headed for home. As L22 approached the Lincolnshire coast it came under heavy attack from an anti-aircraft position. Dietrich, in his unwieldy airship and surrounded by enemy fire, made the decision to lighten his load and jettison the bombs L22 carried.

Many of the explosives fell harmlessly in surrounding farmland. However, one scored a direct hit on the town’s baptist church. In a stroke of misfortune, the chapel was being used overnight as a temporary billet for 70 soldiers. The recruits from the Manchester Regiment had arrived in Cleethorpes the previous day and were awaiting assignment in France. The chapel’s roof and north wall were completely destroyed by the blast, caving in on the soldiers below. A total of 31 men were killed in the attack and many more were injured.

A nurse, recorded only as Mrs. Ellis in the library of St. Aidan’s Church, was one of the first people to respond to the explosion. Her diary is kept as part of the Church’s records. When describing the night, she writes:

“Dante’s Inferno – 3 room floors covered with bodies, dead, dying and suffering and hardly any light. Proceed to do what we can. First man I go to dead. We telephone (hospital) and fill up ambulances.”

Most of the dead are buried in a communal grave at Cleethorpes Cemetery where a memorial can still be visited today. The Baptist Chapel was rebuilt on the same spot and still exists, only a few hundred feet from Forrester’s air raid shelter. Forrester’s air raid shelter is now a protected building and functions as a garage. It is technically on private property and permission is needed before viewing it.

Related Tags

Wwi Bunkers Architectural Oddities Architecture

Know Before You Go

Hidden in the alleyway behind Yarra Road, close to the public library. Look for the Comat Hotel and it's the alley to the rear of this terrace of properties. The alleyway is now gated so it may be locked.

Community Contributors

Added By

kelvin1084

Edited By

Rachel, Jeffwraithes2

  • Rachel
  • Jeffwraithes2

Published

December 1, 2015

Edit this listing

Make an Edit
Add Photos
Sources
  • Cleethorpes: The creation of a seaside resort - Alan Dowling, 2005 - ISBN:1860773435
  • The Book of Cleethorpes - Charles Ekberg, 1986 - ISBN:0860232581
  • A History of St. Aidan's Church - C508:726:5
  • The Grimsby Telegraph - 26 April 1962, 12 March 2012
  • http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/Details/default.aspx?pid=2&id=164472
  • http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-164472-former-air-raid-shelter-to-rear-of-numbe#.VlmpCXbhDIU
  • https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftskib_L_22
  • https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Dietrich
  • http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01sjxzy
Cleethorpes Air Raid Shelter
AND 30 YARRA ROAD
Cleethorpes, England, DN35 8HT
United Kingdom
53.557378, -0.029435
Get Directions

Nearby Places

The Signal Box Inn

Cleethorpes, England

miles away

Grimsby Dock Tower

Grimsby, England

miles away

Grimsby Imp

Grimsby, England

miles away

Explore the Destination Guide

Photo of Cleethorpes

Cleethorpes

England

Places 2

Nearby Places

The Signal Box Inn

Cleethorpes, England

miles away

Grimsby Dock Tower

Grimsby, England

miles away

Grimsby Imp

Grimsby, England

miles away

Explore the Destination Guide

Photo of Cleethorpes

Cleethorpes

England

Places 2

Related Places

  • Underground House

    Las Vegas, Nevada

    Underground House

    A luxurious doomsday bunker hidden beneath an unassuming Las Vegas home offers the best of subterranean suburbia.

  • Bunker in Albania countryside.

    Elbasan County, Albania

    Bunkers of Albania

    Hundreds of thousands of concrete bunkers crowd Albania long after the fall of Communism.

  • Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker. (Wikimedia Commons)

    Cheshire East, England

    Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker

    On a site with a long military history, a 1980s shelter.

  • Bunker at Cape May Point. (Andriy Boychuk)

    Cape May, New Jersey

    Bunker At Cape May Point

    World War II bunker still standing on the New Jersey beach.

  • Bunkers looking North (I-84 view)

    Hermiston, Oregon

    Umatilla Chemical Depot

    A stunning landscape of bunkers that once stored chemical weapons.

  • Rosalie Sharp Centre for Design in the iconic Toronto cityscape.

    Toronto, Ontario

    Rosalie Sharp Centre for Design

    This buzzy, award-winning building hovers 85 feet above the ground on a dozen colorful stilts.

    Sponsored by Destination Toronto
  • West Virginia’s New River Gorge Bridge is the longest steel bridge in the Western Hemisphere.

    Lansing, West Virginia

    Bridge Walk

    In West Virginia, you can walk across the longest single-arch bridge in the Western Hemisphere.

  • The Cathedral Café has been serving it’s community for more than 120 years.

    Fayetteville, West Virginia

    Cathedral Café

    Soak in the sacred vibes at this beloved food and coffee hangout inside a former church.

Aerial image of Vietnam, displaying the picturesque rice terraces, characterized by their layered, verdant fields.
Atlas Obscura Membership

Become an Atlas Obscura Member


Join our community of curious explorers.

Become a Member

Get Our Email Newsletter

Follow Us

Facebook YouTube TikTok Instagram Pinterest RSS Feed

Get the app

Download the App
Download on the Apple App Store Get it on Google Play
  • All Places
  • Latest Places
  • Most Popular
  • Places to Eat
  • Random
  • Nearby
  • Add a Place
  • Stories
  • Food & Drink
  • Itineraries
  • Lists
  • Video
  • Podcast
  • Newsletters
  • All Trips
  • Family Trip
  • Food & Drink
  • History & Culture
  • Wildlife & Nature
  • FAQ
  • Membership
  • Feedback & Ideas
  • Community Guidelines
  • Product Blog
  • Unique Gifts
  • Work With Us
  • About
  • FAQ
  • Advertise With Us
  • Advertising Guidelines
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms of Use
Atlas Obscura

© 2025 Atlas Obscura. All Rights Reserved.