Trenches at Calthorpe Park

Description:This photograph is one of several images taken of trenches dug in Birmingham’s Parks as part of Civil Defence preparations made by the city authorities during the Munich crisis of 1938. Although the outbreak of war between Britain and Germany had been averted by the 30 September signing of the Munich Agreement, the Parks Committee held a meeting on 3 October to discuss the provision of air raid shelters for civil defence in the event of war. A Home Office ruling advised that work should proceed on the trenches already dug, suggesting that the government was aware that war had merely been postponed. Minutes from the summers of 1938 and 1939 suggest an atmosphere in Birmingham of hasty preparations for war, amidst meetings in parks of the Peace Pledge Union and League of Nations Union.^{<small>1</small>}

During the winter of 1938, the Austin Motor Company was given permission to dig trenches in Cofton Park for accommodating workers during air raids, and the Parks Committee discussed the need to dig Air Raid shelter trenches in other city parks and open spaces. There were, however, objections to these plans from those concerned with a loss of revenue resulting from the use of playing fields and other park amenities for trench shelters.^{<small>2</small>}

By 1939, new steel air raid shelters supplied by the Home Office were on display in parks and recreation grounds in the south-west suburbs, including Cotteridge Park, Highgate Park, Kings Heath Park and Selly Park, and the Parks Committee reported that the Public Works Department was making permanent the temporary trench shelters constructed the previous year.^{<small>3</small>}

Following the outbreak of war, parks with trench shelters were kept open at night. There were also proposals to offer temporary accommodation in parks and recreation grounds to people made homeless by enemy action, despite the fact that parks also sustained air raid damage to park buildings, greenhouses and trees caused by high explosives and bomb craters.

As well as providing shelter, Birmingham’s parks were essential sites for food production during the Second World War. Areas of a number of parks were transferred to the Allotments Committee for wartime use, including Calthorpe Park near the Sons of Rest pavilion, Cotteridge Park near the Midland Road entrance, and Kings Heath Park between the tennis courts, bowling green and Avenue Road. The whole of the area of Cannon Hill Park between the Moor Green allotments and the River Rea was given over to growing potatoes, and oats were also grown at other parks.^{<small>4</small>} The Parks Committee was still acquiring seed potatoes in 1947 for growing food in parks, giving evidence of the continuing food shortages in the city.


<font color="#666633"><small>¹ BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 25 July 1938 [BA&H: BCC 1 BO/1/1/19]; 1 May 1939 [BA&H: BCC 1 BO/1/1/20]
² BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 3 October 1938 [BA&H: BCC 1 BO/1/1/19]
³ BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 6 March 1939; 6 May 1939 [BA&H: BCC 1 BO/1/1/20]
⁴ BCC Parks Committee minutes, 3 February 1941 [BA&H: BCC 1 BO/1/1/21]</small></font>