Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History WW2 Thurstatston ( Heswall ) Bombing Decoy

excellent - it's actually quite a distance from the decoy site, especially with the railway between as well.

nice one see u found it hehe,we stumbled across it.

Thanks for the info have passed by that on the Wirral way a number of times,I always thought it was an air raid shelter for the troops who would be area guarding the Radar /gun site,taken a number of pictures from the Wirral way,anybody got any ideas as to what the underground shelter was used for in Meols just opposite the caravan site,I think the the lane is called Guffits Rake,its partly buried with the roof showing and a bit further along about 6ft was showing ,it's in the horse pasture.

Thanks davew3 - that is the Moreton Decoy Control Bunker, I didn't realise how far into Meols this one was ....

See here - Clicky

The name of the decoy site often bears little geographical connection to it's location !

I did read somewhere that the generator (noisy !) for the Thurstatston AA site was on the other side of the railway.

Hi all, the decoy bunker in meols (Guffits rake) has now been converted into a locker room for horse feed and things like that. My girlfriend has horses on that lane and she was telling me about it.

Just wondering, what would be under the concrete (MoD) slab???

I'm wondering if it is a second control bunker, built when the decoy was upgraded (or perhaps the original). It is most definately not a air raid shelter because there was nobody around there to use it. Not a pill box because it is too low to effectively protect the railway. Could be a number of other things though, including just railway oriented item.

Thanks diggingdeeper,did try a web site that had info on pillboxes around the country but never got a reply,I kept wondering about it,was it used for a particular area of Birkenhead docks as the your map just shows fields with no ponds.

Visited the bunker tonight, excellent. Visitors obviously not welcome judging by the newly looking painted signs on the bridge.

It was pitch black when I went, didn't see any signs, just the odd cow pat

I also took my PDRM to the Thurstaston car park, wandered everywhere, and (disappointingly !) didn't find any radiation !

Had a little stroll along the Wirral way today via the 2 ponds behind the mass of bushes and along the path by one pond in the soil is a piece of metal shaped as two coils didn't try to dig it up but I think it's one of those steel posts that they used to put barbed wire on,I can remember these poles from many moons ago laying around Leasowe sandhills before the green lunatics took over the gunsite and turned it to a look but don't walk or touch the pretty flowers,I tried to find the concrete plinth but no luck but further on was another concrete plinth on the river side of the pathway,maybe it was where a platelayers hut sat on.

The concrete plinth is on he river side of one path, it is actually between the two paths, right up against an open wooden fence.

Did you get into the decoy field round the scary U-turn?, I thought the field would be waste high in corn at the moment, it was about a foot deep when I was last there.

i used to go shooting round there in a field we set up hides in small clump of trees lot of concrete there buried mates dog there..