Bridge valley road deep shelter was a second world war area raid shelter constructed within Avon gorge to protect the residents of Bristol, but its history extends further back to the birth and expansion of Britain's railways. The shelter buried beneath the limestone cliffs of the gouge started its life as a railway tunnel called the Portway No 1 built as part of the Bristol Port and Pier Railway's Hotwells branch The tunnel extends for a length of 175 yards under Bridge Valley Road although the road did not exist at the time of its construction. The Hotwells branch opened for rail traffic 1865 with six trains running each way on the line during weekdays and four on Sundays. The service was not operated by the Port and Pier Railway itself, just like its other lines the company granted the running rights over the line to the Bristol and Exeter railway in a lease agreement. The lease was taken over by the Great Western Railway in 1871 along with the rest of the Bristol and Exeter company. Three years later the Great Western and Midland Railways entered into a joint venture to extend the line between Temple Meads Station and the GWR's South Wales line via an extension from Narroways Hill Junction to the Midland's Birmingham to Bristol line. By the 1920's an alternative line constructed on the west bank of the gorge had taken most of the traffic away from the Portsway line and it was abandoned south of Sneyd Park Junction in 1921. The following year the track was lifted to make way for the construction for the A4 Bristol Parkway road which at the time of its completion in 1926 was the most expensive road constructed in Britain.

The new road did not follow the route of the railway exactly as it approached the railway tunnel the road curved around it following the base of the gorge leaving the tunnel cut of alongside the carriageway. After its abandonment the tunnel faded in to obscurity but once German bomber raids started to hit on Bristol during the second world war it was pressed into service as an air raid shelter. Bristol was the fifth heaviest bombed city in Britain during the war. Bristol docks and the nearby Bristol Aeroplane Company marked the city out as a priority target for the Luftwaffe. Between November 1940 and April 1941 a period remembered as the Bristol Blitz six major raids were responsible for the death of 1,400 of the city's residents and wide spread destruction in the the city center. The Portway tunnel gained a reputation as the safest place to be when the bombs started to fall. So many Bristolians began to make the nightly trip along the gorge to the shelter that the authorities fearing a riot over space or an epidemic from the increasingly unsanitary conditions in the tunnel took action, hundreds of people were forcibly removed from the tunnel and ordered not to return. The conditions within the tunnel were improved with the construction of toilets and a system of passes was introduced to prevent overcrowding. These actions caused a great deal of resentment within the city's population but as the threat of the Blitz passed the tunnel was once again abandoned and forgotten.

Many years later the tunnel was taken over by the Bristol gun club who converted the forward part of the tunnel in to a club house and firing range. They called the tunnel home until 1996 when the club closed following the ban on the use and ownership of hand guns in the UK.

Today the tunnel still lies alongside the A4 hidden from the hundreds of drivers who pass it each day by thick undergrowth. The North portal of the tunnel is reached through a small cutting a small concrete path covering the long abandoned railway bed. The Portal itself has been bricked over leaving a single door as the entrance to the gun club and air raid shelter beyond.

Pushing past the the heavy metal door which protects the entrance I entered a small brick lined passage way past a row of toilet cubicles. Towards a yellow house door which leads into the gun club. The whole tunnel has been rigged with a long string of light bulbs from one end to the other so with a flick of a switch the tunnel is brightly lit. Entering the gun club it is not obvious that we are within a railway tunnel. The first room we enter has been boxed off and and lined with plasterboard making a very un tunnel like club room, some certificate for shooting skill still just about hanging on to the wall. Beyond the club room a door marked "gun room" leads us into the armory a rifle rack along one wall, some spent .22 practice cartridges and paper targets lie on the dusty floor. Moving on another door way leads us to the first signs of the air raid shelter though converted asa firing range. In order to prepare the railway tunnel as refuge from the bombing the tunnel was lined in a corrugated iron structure to catch and divert the drips from the tunnel roof and keep the people sheltering below dry for the night. The rifle range itself stretches for about thirty meters ending in a wooden firing butt with space for four targets. Passing behind the firing butt be find a brick wall dividing the tunnel with a small arch way leading on. Behind the butts a bank of sand supports the wooden structure and gives it a bit more stopping power.

Ducking down through the archway we leave the gun club behind and the railway tunnel emerges. Ahead I can see another brick wall divides the tunnel again, between the two walls the improvements of the air raid shelter have been stripped away leaving the railway tunnels exposed, a tall arch of brick work. Here the floor becomes uneven scattered with the occasional fallen brick or rock. Water drips on us from above showing how necessary the corrugated iron protection was. A little way along the tunnel a small arched alcove opens in the right hand wall of the tunnel, a railway workers refuge where a railway man working with in the tunnel could duck out of the way of a passing train.

Stepping through the second wall we find ourselves back within the the air raid shelter, this section much better preserved than the firing range. Along with the cast iron protection around us a ventilation pipe stretches across the ceiling, with hundreds of people sheltering down here the air would have turned bad very quickly with out the fresh air brought in through the ventilation system. The floor in the shelter has been leveled off with compacted ash or asphalt leaving a smooth level surface. At the end of the shelter another brick wall leads us into the toilets two rows of half demolished cubicles would have hosed the chemical toilets or buckets for who knows how many people crowded into the tunnel. At the back of the toilets a final brick wall blocks off the rest of the tunnel unused since 1920. Turning around we retrace our steps back through the tunnel passing an old metal case now full with water dripping from the tunnel roof and leave the portway tunnel behind us, of course switching of the lights on the way out even an abandoned railway tunnel has to be careful about its carbon foot print these days.