How Romford's town hall hosted a secret wartime bunker

This week, the Recorder is looking back at how the borough got ready for the Second World War, specifically with the setting up of Air Raid Precautions (ARP) report centres.

These were established in the late 1930s as part of the country's preparations for home defence in the event of a war, and acted as control rooms from where the authorities could coordinate information and organise rescue.

In Havering, which was then split across Romford Borough and Hornchurch Urban District, ARP committees were set up to recruit and train volunteers.

Hornchurch Urban District Council Report and Control Staff at Langtons c.1941 (Image: Havering Libraries-Local Studies)

Women were also recruited to the ARP through the Women's Voluntary Service, which gained 336,000 members after it was set up in June 1938.

The basement of Romford's town hall - originally designed for storage - was reinforced as part of war preparations to allow work to continue during air raids.

A switchboard, an office and a dormitory stacked with bunks were also installed at this time, transforming the space into an ARP report centre.

Secret communication to Hornchurch ARP wardens on October 18, 1941 regarding action in the event of invasion (Image: Havering Libraries-Local Studies)

According to a previous article in this paper, personnel were allowed to smoke, and with "the nervous tension induced by war conditions, the atmosphere was often somewhat cloudy".

Other report centres included one at Langtons Gardens in Hornchurch and one at Upminster Park - the latter of which has now been made a Grade II listed building by Historic England.

The majority of staff at the Langtons report centre were from Hornchurch Urban District Council, with photographs dating back to around 1941 showing the full team, as well as sub-controller and incident officers.

Extract from a 1939 plan showing the proposed site for the report centre at Langtons Gardens (Image: Havering Libraries-Local Studies)

The minutes of a council ARP committee meeting on April 30, 1940 reveal that staff were asked to form their report centre teams themselves, so that "friends can be on duty together".

Besides the report centres, other preparations for war in Havering included the distribution of 62,000 masks by Romford Council, and the formation of invasion committees for Romford, Collier Row and Noak Hill, to evacuate residents should the Germans land.