not a secret bunker…

Yesterday (20th August), Major Vic Freeman called in at Roman Circus House to see Trust director Philip Crummy. Major Freeman is a retired Royal Engineer Officer with an interest in military buildings and fortifications, who worked at Colchester garrison from 1978 until 1996, first as a staff officer in HQ Eastern District and then as a project officer for capital works in the district, so he knows a lot about the old garrison! It was Major Freeman who told us, in September 2012, that Roman Circus House was formerly the NAAFI of the Artillery (Le Cateau) Barracks, which was a great discovery for us. Yesterday Major Freeman came to tell us about the ‘secret bunker’, an underground chamber which was uncovered last week during an archaeological watching brief which is being conducted by the Trust. The underground chamber is in the grounds of a house on St John’s Green in Colchester.

Major Freeman had more fascinating inside information for us. The house used to be part of the garrison and he was actually based in the house for ten years. We had been speculating that the ‘secret bunker’ was a military operations room dating from the Cold War/nuclear threat era, but Major Freeman was able to tell us definitively that it was a military air-raid shelter for the house. The house was actually the ‘A’ Officers’ Mess or ‘The General’s Mess’ to which all the officers in HQ Eastern District belonged. Apparently, in times of threat, the whole HQ Staff at Colchester were moved underground, somewhere in Suffolk.

Many thanks to Major Freeman for all his interest and information.

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