Somehow I don't think it was intended as an air-raid shelter, it appeared to be much older than the 1940's, and there didn't seem to be a proper access. I entered by sliding down a couple of feet and dropping through a hole made by my father.
As to when he knocked it down I would guess sometime around 1947/8, possibly a little later. Do you recall the prisoner-of-war camp below the Bottom Row. I remember it being built and the first lot of prisoners-Italian. They seemed to come and go as they wished, worked on local farms and several made very good friends with local girls. After the Italians came the Germans and things changed dramatically. There were a lot more guards with fixed bayonets and the barbed wire was increased. Later came the DP's (displaced persons, mostly Poles, at least one stayed on to live in Chirk). The war had ended then of course and eventually the camp was emptied. My step-grandfather, Tom Turner (you may remember him) had left the pit and worked for the council. He looke after the empty camp and for some reason was given the job of demolishing Jummers Hole.
He was pretty useless at anything other than gardening and my father took on the job since the family was sure Tom would kill himself under a pile of rubble. So that is why I think it was a few years after the war ended.
There were shelters dug into the mount, accessed from the road opposite Ben the Barbers shop. They were never used as far as I know, too many folk were afraid that they would collapse, being cut into the relatively soft clinker.
Keith
