Dotted around the country are 25 sub-surface bunkers that were designed to monitor the fallout from a possible nuclear attack and today I wandered down to Maidstone to visit the bunker that “controlled” the South-East of England, including a bit of SE London.

For the record – the HQ in Horsham covered most of the South of London. North West London was covered by Bedford and East London by Colchester.

Unlike the bunkers built during the second world war which were used by the military as command centres for fighting the war, the cold-war era bunkers were simply to observe and report. Their function was to help pick up the pieces in the aftermath of an all out nuclear strike by the Soviet Union.

In addition to the 25 Group Headquarters bunkers, there were 1,563 smaller bunkers dotted around the country – each barely large enough to house three people.

In the event of a nuclear attack, the small bunkers would be manned by volunteers and monitor radiation fallout levels then pass that to the Group Headquarters. They in turn, mapped the data and made it available to whatever was left of the civilian government to help direct emergency help, or know what areas were to be written off as unsalvageable.

Most of the Group Headquarter buildings are pretty much identical, although some local variations do happen. There would be an above ground entrance building – painted white to help refract the heat from a nearby nuclear blast. The above ground bit also contained the air inlet filters for the bunker below.

Then there is a main floor which would be part submerged, and part covered in a soil bank around and above it – and there would be a second lower floor which is smaller and limited to the main command room areas, but also contained the main telex machines.

The Maidstone bunker is in fact the second bunker I have visited – having been to the bunker in York a few years ago just after it had been restored to its mid-1980s state. The bunker in Maidstone has not been so lovingly treated.

Commissioned in 1961, in the grounds of an older building that had been acting as the above ground headquarters for the Royal Observer Corps during WW2, the bunker was decommissioned in 1991 when the Cold War ended. The building and grounds were sold to a firm of solicitors, who it seems were at a bit of a loss of what to do with the bunker and, as is often the case with underground structures, they used it to store old documents.

Modern fire safety regulations means the bunker can’t be used as storage without significant expenditure on fire safety systems and it is being progressively cleared out. The visit today – organised by Sub Brit – got to see the bunker in its half-cleared state. Volunteers will remove the last of the storage over the next few months, then some serious head-scratching will take place to work out what to do with the bunker and if it can be restored as the York bunker has been.

I’ll let the photos tell the rest.

The above ground entrance

Machinery room

The main room where all the work took place

Looking down on the "roof" of the bunker

The back door

The last calendar for the bunker - from 1991

Visiting the Maidstone HQ is possible by special arrangement. Visits to the York bunker used to be by appointment, but they now open the facility every weekend and you can just turn up for a tour.

More photos from today’s visit to 1 Group ROC HQ in Maidstone.

Older photos from my previous visit to the restored 20 Group ROC HQ in York.

Also worth visiting:

Battle of Britain Bunker in Uxbridge

Reserve Cabinet War Rooms in North London

There are hopes that one of the Cold War’s most iconic military aircraft, the Avro Vulcan will make a flight over London in 2012 for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee – but the flight is under threat due to a lack of money.

There are a few planes in various states of restoration, and a couple of years ago, one of them was able to make its “maiden flight” as a fully restored plane. However, the charity that maintains it is now in financial problems and may have to mothball the plane.

Photo courtesy of Vulcan to the Sky Trust

With realistically, just a eighteen months to go before the plane has to be confirmed to be part of the fly past over London, the timing is an appalling blow to the charity.

With under £200,000 raised since November against a goal of £800,000, the Trust needs to raise over £300,000 in new pledges by the end of February to justify a stay of execution, followed by a further £300,000 in pledges by the end of March.

At this moment (24th Feb), they have just a few days left to raise the remaining £100,000 needed to stop the shut-down.

At the moment, they are just seeking pledges to donate, not actual cash – so you don’t even need to get your wallet out. Just click a link and fill in the form, or you can make a cash donation right now.

The Vulcan XH558 is the only flying Vulcan in the world, and is also the oldest complete Vulcan anywhere: her first ever test flight was on 25th May 1960, so 2010 is her 50th Anniversary year.

As a fund-raiser, the charity it attempting to set a world record by getting the most signatures on a 50th birthday card, and you can add your name here.

Although it looks like a fighter jet sized plane in the video, it is actually a very big bomber – with a wingspan of 99 feet, about half the width of a football field.

Photo courtesty of Vulcan to the Sky Trust

If you want to see a Vulcan bomber up close, there is one in the RAF Museum in North London – with slightly amusingly – the bomber bay in the plane having been converted into a mini-cinema showing an educational film about the plane. That plane is grounded, but if you want to see one in the air again – click here to pledge a donation.

To add an element of topicality to the blog posting – it should be remembered that it was the Vulcan bombers that made the then record breaking flight from the UK to the Falkland Islands to bomb Port Stanley Airport. With the Falklands back in the news again, you never know, they might need that last remaining Vulcan to be called back into service again!

The infamous (amongst tunnel/military aficionados) tunnels under Chancery Lane are to be put up for sale at last. I have been aware that BT were working on decommissioning them for some time, and was trying to find out who was handling the sale – only for them to put out a press release about the sale today.

I have a serious business idea for the tunnels – which do not (alas) involve turning them into a tourist attraction – but the current economic turmoil in the city makes that less viable, but not totally silly. Most of the deep level tunnels which were emptied out have been converted into secure document storage facilities, but my business plan was a bit more techie.

Anyhow – now that the tunnels have been cleared out of the secret stuff we can’t see, such as the claimed section occupied by the security services for a while, it will be interesting to see if BT let people go down for public tours during the disposal process.

Weblinks:

BT press release

Sub Brit report