I know it makes us sound very careless, but yes, we have lost an air raid shelter, and possibly even two.

We have lived adjacent to Twickenham Green for 25 years, and over that time heard numerous rumours about its past.

How it was used for allotments, and even as a temporary rubbish dump during the great bin strike.

The most tantalising was the story of the air raid shelter that lies beneath The Green. But no one could ever tell us where exactly that was.

In very dry spells, the grass dries out in some very distinctive patterns, and at the events end, near Arthurs Restaurant, you can occasionally see a distinctive rectangular pattern, with a diagonal coming from it, like a large letter 'Q'. So far, no one has explained what this might be.

Some years back, I was told there had been a sink hole appear, beside the cricket square. Rumour has it that you could look in to the void and see a brick lined cavity, but again, no photographic evidence, nor a first-hand account from a witness.

What do we have? A publication called, When The Bombs Fell, by Paul Barnfield, states, "(by 3rd September 1939)… At The Green there would soon be a shelter for 620…"

This would be a quite a large structure given the number of people it was designed to have accommodated, and surely there must be some record of it having been built?

We also have a copy of the Borough of Twickenham A.R.P. (Air Raid Precautions) map, (Courtesy Richmond Local Studies Collection) that seems to suggest two possible sites on The Green, plus an ARP post. However, the scale of the map makes it difficult to see clearly where the shelter or shelters might have been.

For all these tantalising clues, we still have no clear evidence of exactly where this structure, or possibly even two structures, are located on The Green.

The Friends of Twickenham Green have thus launched a Spring project to find our lost shelter. We want to move on from hearsay, and find a definitive evidence based answer.

Do you or any of your family have a memory of the shelter?

Does anyone have a record of where exactly it was located?

Are there any photos of the entrance that would have been on the surface?

Are the council, museum or the library holding any records of the shelter?

At times of the year when The Green is particularly dry, has anyone seen any evidence (eg. Drone or Google Earth footage) of the structure?

If you have any clues to pass on, please let us know. A prize to be awarded to the person who gives us a definitive answer, to our long unsolved mystery.

But please, do not start digging up The Green!