The archaeological intervention works in the anti-aircraft shelter located under the CEIP Sant Vicent Ferrer de Llíria have finished this week. This project, promoted by the Department of Democratic Memory, tries to recover and value this structure that was intended to protect the civilian population in the event of aerial bombardment during the Spanish Civil War. The actions carried out in this phase have had a cost of 12,400 euros, and the direction has been carried out from the Department of Archeology of the Edetano City Council.

The shelter, one of whose entrances was discovered during the school improvement works, is one of the best-preserved shelters in Llíria. It is a gallery of about 100 meters in length, linear and from north to south, passing under the two buildings that make up the school. This gallery, between 80 and 90 cm wide and between 1.70 and 1.90 m high, is chopped by hand in the natural geological terrain, formed by layers of fossiliferous limestone, called snail, very easy to work, and of very soft clayey marls.

Structure with four entrances

It has four entrances, with about forty concrete formwork steps each, compartmentalized into three sections that form an S to avoid the shock waves of the bombs in the event of an aircraft attack. Three of these entrances face Avenida dels Furs, leading to the schoolyard -two of them located between the south block, and a third between the two buildings-, while a fourth has access from Sant Vicent street.

The refuge, which was built after the school, excavating a mine below it, is located about 8 m below the current surface, which guaranteed its stability in case of bombardment. In addition, the shape of the gallery, finished in a round, also ensures that it can easily support all the weight unloaded on it.

Based on the data available to date, it is believed that construction began around the first third of the year 1938, when the current CEIP Sant Vicent became a hospital, to care for war wounded people arriving from the front. It must have been promoted by the Junta de Defensa Pasiva, and built by the same Lirian population for the defense, in principle, of the military hospital, since there are several public and private shelters throughout the urban area. The shelter was not completed, quite surely, since its construction was abandoned at the end of the war in 1939. It was never used either, since the urban area of ​​Llíria was never bombed by aircraft, except for one bomb fall in the Pic street.

The Councilor for Democratic Memory, Consuelo Morató, explained that from the area “we intend to finish the project to enhance and equip the refuge, a witness to the repercussions of the Civil War, so that citizens can visit it in the future. This historical heritage can become one more tourist attraction in the city, dedicated to remembering the efforts of the civilian population to protect themselves from war and its horrors, a fact that seems very distant to us, but that we can now find at our doors. of Europe, with the war in the Ukraine”.