Air raid shelter, Haugh Street, Falkirk

The building is a Second World War domestic air raid shelter, potentially a prototype built in the early months of the conflict. It is located at the northern end of the rear gardens of 68 and 70 Haugh Street in Bainsford, Falkirk.

The building is a brick and concrete structure, with gabled east and west ends and a pitched concrete roof. There is a single entrance at each gabled end of the building, and the remains of baffle walls that previously shielded the doors from blasts. Internally, the structure is divided into two rooms by a central brick wall, one for each residential property, with a low crawlspace in the central wall permitting access between them in an emergency.

Historical development

Six terraced houses including a house at 68 and 70 Haugh Street are shown on Ordnance Survey maps (surveyed 1938, published c.1948), and these houses remain on the site to the modern day. The air raid shelter is not visible on the 1938 Ordnance Survey map but appears to have been built in a single phase, within the first few years of the Second World War, as records indicate Falkirk Council were constructing brick shelters by late 1940, and as this example may be a prototype design it would likely have been among the earliest to be built.