The Open Day tour of the Air Raid Shelter at St. Leonards Court in Mortlake on Sunday 13 September 2026 attracted 230 visitors from far and wide.

One special visitor travelled from Maidstone Grammar School for Girls. Mary Smith is a guide of their Air Raid Shelter. She is organising tours over the forthcoming half term break.

Twelve underground classrooms were discovered at the School, one set of six underground classrooms in 2013, and then a second set in 2019.

The tour involves a talk about wartime school life (showing many of the paintings) in a recreated 1940s classroom full of many wartime artefacts, then a tour of all 12 underground classrooms.

The blackboard at the far end is not original – it has been placed so that children can be taught there as they would have been at the time.  The wartime teachers used all the walls as blackboards – there are still chalked lessons visible which are fascinating. There are also paintings by a youg art teacher documenting the lives of schoolchildren and teachers as the war unfolded.

Well worth a visit if you can make it to Maidstone.