Air-raid shelter becomes fine wine storage facility

EHD London is planning to open a fine wine storage facility in early March deep beneath Britain’s Surrey hills.

The new Weybridge-based underground store was previously an air raid shelter constructed at the outbreak of the Second World War.

Comprising as many as 17 tunnels covering one mile in length, the space was built in 1939 to protect the 5,000 staff working on the construction of fighter aircraft.

The tunnels were dug beneath the first purpose-built banked motor race circuit in the world, Brooklands, which was turned over to production of military aircraft when war broke out.

The racing circuit was the brainchild of British entrepreneur, Sir Hugh Fortescue Locke-King, from whom the new facility – Locke-King Vaults – takes its name.

“The preparation of Vaults has been very exciting and at times has resembled a scene from the BBC television show Time Team as various artefacts have been pulled from the debris some 65 years after the tunnels were sealed by the Ministry of Defence,” Michael Phelps, director at EHD London No.1 Bond, told the drinks business.

“The Locke-King Vaults offers a unique facility, rivaling the best conditions in the United Kingdom to store wine; providing constant temperatures between 12-14 degrees Celsius, perfect humidity and all within close proximity to London,” he added.
 
The operation will be managed by former Christie’s of London cellar manager James Temple, with the assistance of EHD’s staff and resources at the main EHD offices and warehouse on the Brooklands site where the company currently stores in excess of 300,000 cases in above-ground conditions.

Patrick Schmitt, 25.02.2010