HE BEGAN to investigate what looked like a sinkhole – and unearthed a long-forgotten relic of the Second World War.

Gas engineer Daniel Hibdige discovered his back garden had been hiding a concrete bunker built during the dark days when Nazi bombers targeted the south.

During the war most people with gardens sought refuge in Anderson shelters during a raid.

They were prefabricated structures with a curved, corrugated iron roof which was covered with plenty of earth to give the occupants extra protection.

But the subterranean sanctuary behind Daniel’s home in Cranbury Road, Eastleigh, was a larger, deeper shelter which is thought to have been an air raid wardens’ post.

The family moved in four years ago but until recently were totally unaware of what lay buried beneath their lawn.

It began to emerge a few days before Christmas, when soil started disappearing down one of the shelter’s two entrances at an alarming rate.

Daniel, 31, was at work when he received a call from his wife Erin, who said a hole had appeared in the garden and was getting bigger.

He said: “I went home and put a drain camera down the hole. When I saw concrete I grabbed a shovel and started digging.

“I was massively relieved it wasn’t a sinkhole - and incredibly intrigued by what I had found.

“I went to Eastleigh Museum to see if they had any information. They think the most likely explanation is that it was a wardens’ post.”

The shelter was full of rubble and rusty items from a bygone era, including an oil lantern, a toy pram, and a poster advertising Wright’s Coal Tar Soap. Other objects found in the darkness suggest that no-one had been inside since the 1970s.

Daniel has spent the past two weeks excavating the shelter with the help of his lifelong friend, Alex Brown, 30, of Bishopstoke.

They plan to turn it into an underground pub by installing a bar for family and friends once all the material has been removed.

Daniel joked: “We’ll have earned a drink by the time we’ve got that lot out.”

During the war Eastleigh’s airport, now Southampton Airport, where the Supermarine Spitfire fighter plane made its maiden flight in 1936, helped make the town a prime target for Luftwaffe bombers. It also had extensive railway works and a giant Pirelli factory.

Four years ago borough council workmen improving the town centre found the entrance to a 90-metre long air raid shelter.