In 1938 Stockport Corporation began the task of excavating a network of shelters, carved out of the sandstone rock. Underground shelters could be dug quickly, cheaply and easily. The tunnels were dug by teams that worked in shifts using pneumatic hand tools. It took a year to create the tunnels that would initially accommodate 4000 people. They were extended in 1941 to increase capacity to 6000. Audio transcript Stockport Advertiser, May 1939. Stockport Air Raid Shelters nearing End of First Tunnel. Their pneumatic drills have cut into the sandstone rock which has lain undisturbed for millions of years, Stockport's cavemen excavators are approaching the end of their first completed section of the town's main air raid shelter. While one party has been drilling from Chestergate towards Underbank and the obvious piles of crushed sandstone have been clearly visible to the public, another party has been at work unobserved from a point close to the foot of St Petersgate Bridge in the Royal Oak Yard. Some time tonight or early tomorrow morning the two tunnels will meet and the workmen will be able to stage a modern Livingstone / Stanley meeting, shake hands through the gap made by the drills and picks. For 300 feet or more the tunnel runs through the rock and from it lead 30 foot long galleries which in turn will be linked up by another tunnel forming the main shelter. Electric lamps already illuminate the entrance to each gallery and the effect if not picturesque, is at any rate strange. For the past few weeks two shifts have been worked starting at 5am and ending at 11pm each day.