'Forgotten arsenal' investigated

[emad]

August 10, 2005

An arsenal of explosives and guns is believed to be buried in a forgotten wartime bunker on a Scots country estate. Police are investigating the claims of an historian who was tipped off that the bunker on the Bowland Estate near Galashiels, Selkirkshire, was sealed during the Second World War and left untouched since then.

The underground chamber was built by the specially formed Auxiliary Unit in preparation for the expected Nazi invasion of 1940. It was filled with 14 days’ rations for each resistance movement member and enough weapons and explosives to carry out guerrilla raids against the Germans. By 1942, the Auxiliary Unit, comprising farmers and other reserved occupations with specialist knowledge of the countryside, was stood down and the bunker sealed.

Most were identified after the war and emptied but Borders historian Walter Elliot, 70, has been given information that one on the 9,000-acre estate is still filled with explosives. Bowland Estate Ltd is now owned by a businessman who was away yesterday and could not be contacted.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-1728779,00.html

[Taxloss]

1. Scottish landowners were allowed to keep private armies until the

late 18th century. When you've usurped a whole people and almost diven them into the sea, it's handy to have a private army around.