![Secret underground wartime bunker in Surrey woodland set to go under the hammer for £165k](https://static.standard.co.uk/2024/04/05/12/03/Foxwarren bunker up for sale.jpg?trim=5,0,36,0&quality=100&auto=webp&width=1920)
Secret underground wartime bunker in Surrey woodland set to go under the hammer for £165k
The subterranean concrete bunker, said to have links to the Dambusters, is being sold with two acres of prime commuter belt land
A forgotten Second World War shelter with rumoured links to the Dambusters raid is to go up for auction with a guide price of £165,000.
Foxwarren Bunker, near Cobham in Surrey, is being sold with 2.1 acres of commuter belt woodland — but no planning permission for the site.
Michael Mercer of auctioneers Strettons, who is representing the lot, has never sold an air raid shelter.
“We don’t exactly get wartime bunkers offered to us every month. It’s definitely an unusual one.”
![](https://static.standard.co.uk/2024/04/05/16/09/Entrance to Foxwarren bunker.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&width=960)
Today the subterranean bunker is a source of intrigue for amateur explorers, who have documented visits on YouTube and websites dedicated to derelict underground finds.
Built into a bank in the forest, its foreboding entrance leads down into an H-shaped bunker with reinforced concrete walls — a departure from the corrugated iron sheets typical of traditional air raid shelters.
Sensible wartime planners installed a vertical escape shaft at the far end, which is now inaccessible thanks to a broken ladder and large tree root.
It would have been constructed using a cut and cover technique, with the structure of the tunnels built within an excavated site and then covered with the backfill material.
![](https://static.standard.co.uk/2024/04/05/16/13/Inside the Foxwarren bunker.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&width=960)
Though it’s certainly no billionaire’s bunker, there is suggestion that the shelter has direct links to one of the most dramatic passages in British military history.
It is believed to have served nearby Brooklands, a motor racing circuit and aerodrome that was turned over to the production of military aircraft during the Second World War.
A network of depots linked to the site became the base of the Foxwarren Experimental Department, a secret wartime project that produced prototypes for new planes and weapons.
Dambusters inventor Barnes Wallis would have worked here on the development of the bouncing bomb, with one nearby hangar credited as housing the development trials for the bomb’s release mechanism.
The 1943 Dambusters Raid saw an RAF squadron launch a surprise attack on a series of German dams, using Wallis’ new bomb to cause catastrophic flooding that diminished Nazi steel, coal and armaments production.
![](https://static.standard.co.uk/2024/04/05/16/43/Surrey woodland for sale Foxwarren bunker.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&width=960)
So will the site sell to a keen history buff or a hopeful developer?
“It’s hard to say,” says Mercer. “We’d always advise any client to do their own research regarding planning, but it’s worth noting that this is green belt land”.
The site was put up for sale £300,000 last year, but failed to find a buyer. Mercer says that Strettons have recently sold an adjacent parcel of land and have seen “keen” interest in this plot.
“It’s hard to put a value on something like this, but that’s the good thing about an auction.”
The lot will be go under the hammer on April 18.