A HISTORIAN who was once evacuated from the capital to escape the bombing of World War Two has succeeded in an attempt to preserve a rare air raid siren in Hale.
The siren on Cecil Road is now Grade-II listed after an application was approved by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) on the advice of Historic England.
George Cogswell, the historian who made the application, said it is important to preserve something so central to the area's history, and to his own experiences as a child in the 1940s.
He said: "The impact of the war was everywhere. It was normal to play in bomb sites as children. I recall the sound of V1 rockets launched at London – the sound recordings of them even now still send a shiver down my spine.
"Air raid sirens were an important part of our national response to this threat and when I discovered a rare example of this system surviving in the area I wanted to save it. It is such a rare landmark of the wartime Home Front."
The siren on Cecil Road was installed in 1938, and it was one of 7,000 installed across the country in response to the threat of bombing by the Nazis.
It would sound if an air attack was imminent, allowing the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) services to take to their stations and the public to seek shelter.
After World War Two, the siren remained in use, this time in response to the threat of a nuclear attack during the Cold War.
It was decommissioned around 30 years ago, but unlike other examples was not removed on the orders of the Home Office.
Now it is Grade-II listed, meaning it is of 'special interest', it is protected from alteration or removal without special permission.
Roger Thomas, listing adviser at Historic England, said: "We are delighted that Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has supported our recommendation that Hale’s air raid siren is listed.
"It is an extremely rare example of a surviving Second World War air raid siren and it serves as a reminder of the experience of the civilian population under aerial attack during the Second World War, and of the fear of nuclear attack during the Cold War.”
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