Behind Fairleigh Court in Leigh on Sea remains an impressive set of six Anderson shelters. Anderson shelters were issued free to all householders earning £5 a week, and cost £7 for those earning more. They were issued from February 1939 prior to British declaration of war, and throughout the Second World War. When the war ended, it become common for people to unearth their buried Anderson shelters and reuse the corrugated steel to make garden sheds.
Here, the shelters have been used for exactly this, unearthed and had brick entrances with wooden doorways added. It can be presumed that the residents of the building (appearing to be of 1930’s origin) had the Anderson shelters added into the garden of the flat block when war struck, and reused them as sheds when the war was over. They are still in use today in what appears to be a communal garden area for the flats. Whether the wartime residents used the garden communally or individually is unclear, but they could have had these shelters set up to accommodate all the families living there at the time. Alternatively, they could’ve been purchased post-war as sheds from elsewhere and installed.
