Old buildings often hide fascinating history. “If these walls could talk” is a familiar saying, but it makes you wonder what secrets lie beneath. As a child, I was captivated by my grandparents’ 18th-century mansion, imagining who lived there and what it looked like before construction began.
Simon Marks, from Luton, England, discovered a hidden WWII air raid shelter in his front yard. He thought he had driven into a flowerbed when his car dipped into the ground. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was a two-room shelter, not a garden.
“I thought it was a sinkhole”, Simon recalled. “I was scared the house would disappear.” After sending photos to his father, Simon uncovered a ladder and used a selfie stick to capture images of the shelter. His father quickly identified it as an air raid bunker.
Simon had bought the house from an elderly couple who had built it in the 1970s. He believes they knew about the shelter but filled it in when constructing the house. Simon was thrilled by the discovery and began digging with his father to reveal the entire structure. “It’s part of our history”, Simon said. “It should be preserved.”