Link – Descend Into Great Britain’s Network of Secret Nuclear Bunkers

Seems to be the season for bunker news………

We’re standing in a room buried 10 feet below the North Yorkshire moors in northeast England, near the village of Castleton. The wind howls over the hatch above our heads as Hanlon—no expert, just an enthusiast—describes how the room would have been used, as an outpost of English civility and resourcefulness in the face of a nuclear attack. This bunker is one of hundreds just like it, scattered across the country. They’re no longer in use, having been decommissioned for decades, but they’re a nationwide network of relics of fear—a fear that seems never to have left.

As I understand it, there were quite a few of these ‘observation’ bunkers in England. Small one- or two-man concrete rooms no bigger than a bedroom buried to provide observers with some token protection. At least one was purchased privately for use as a ‘study room’. I suppose with a bunker that small it’s best function is as a bolt-hole for when you’re on the move and need to resupply or lay low for a few nights. Otherwise, it seems awfully small to live in for any length of time more than a few days.

On the bright side, a smallish bunker like that would be a pretty basic build project as opposed to something larger, I would think.

5 thoughts on “Link – Descend Into Great Britain’s Network of Secret Nuclear Bunkers”

Driving down a rural road one day and observing a rather elaborate culverted driveway with a 2′ or so diameter culvert beneath about 10′ of fill, I got the notion in my mind that it would not be that hard to put a “T-junction” in that culvert and run the leg of the “T” to a chamber that could be used as a hide-out or supply cache. So long as it was slightly above the level of the cross-bar of the “T” it would remain dry even during extremely wet weather, and adding an air vent and a escape tunnel would not be difficult. Very unlikely to be detected without a serious ground search of the sort that would only occur if one was already on the “locate and eliminate” list.

I feel I’d be suck starting my Webley within two weeks. God bless those who can be underground, that small, that long.

Watching those History channel shows about all the massive underground chambers, tunnels, labyrinths, etc. in Europe leaves me in awe of how tough those people must have been. There are few tasks harder than underground mining. Of course most were probably slaves and it was dig or die but having dug a few holes and laid some block in my day, it’s not easy by a long shot, especially with the crude hand tools they had to use.

Tested it one time in my limestone/caliche rock back yard. Using a digging bar, pick and shovel, it took most of two days to move one yard of limestone that was harder than a whore’s heart.

Read about one of the larger UK government bunkers, entrance was disguised as a normal cottage house, but made out of poured, reinforced concrete. The most interesting part was that when the septic tanks filled up (which might happen fast if occupants received a low to medium radiation dose) they could hit a pump which would “blow” the contents of the septic tanks out onto the hillside. Side benefit I’m thinking, is that it might be a disincentive to raiding the place. Its a museum now.

Those “observation bunkers” were only intended for 1-3 radiological observers to inhabit for the 41ish days from DEFCON-1 to D+41, by which time radioactivity should have declined to where return to the surface would be theoretically possible. They were purely for counting Rads, and getting wind speed and direction numbers in the interim, for relay to whatever central authority survived any such attack.

In short, they were nuclear liferafts, not “survival bunkers” as most of us would concieve the term. And they were taken and lifted wholesale from the resistance bunkers the Brits built in 1940 nationwide for 3-man behind-the-lines sabotage and resistance between Dunkirk and The Battle Of Britain, when the entire countryside expected an imminent Nazi invasion. In the event, no one seriously expected those cells to survive beyond a month, and that’s all the food they stockpiled – if even that much – within one.

The exemplars are a case study, however, in how one ought to go about placing a cache, i.e. precisely the waypoint bolthole the Bloghost mentions.

They are not a place to reside long-term, but would make an excellent bolthole in challenging circumstances to get from Point A to Point B, provided the list of people who know about it/them fits on the first line of your driver’s license. A place where one could rest undisturbed, lay low (literally), heal, level up and resupply unseen and unbeknownst, in something you could dig out with a Bobcat backhoe, and build single-handed in a weekend for under $1K is always a good idea on several levels.

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