Top 10 Secret Bunkers In The UK

December 23, 2011 5:56 PM ‐ UndergroundUrbEx

This article is more than ten years old and was last updated in July 2017.

Uncover some of the UK government's best kept secrets. From a little known hidden nuclear bunker in Wiltshire to active bunkers like Pindar under Central London.

10. Drakelow Tunnels, Kidderminster

Drakelow Tunnels Entrance

The tunnels were originally excavated to house the Drakelow Underground Dispersal Factory where Rover produced aircraft parts for the Air Ministry, after the Second World War it was refitted and put on standby during the Cold War as a bunker for the local government. Today it is an airsoft venue and popular with ghost hunters.

9. The BBC's Secret Nuclear Bunker, Wood Norton

Burlington Wartime Broadcasting Services Equipment
Photo: © Crown Copyright

The BBC's Wartime Broadcasting Service first went in to operation during the Second World War. Staff and resources were relocated to a site at Wood Norton near Evesham. By the end of the 1960s a large bunker was built housing four radio studios and accommodation for 100 staff. During an attack the Central Government would be relocated to the Emergency Government War Headquarters, Burlington in Corsham, therefore a studio was connected directly to the Wood Norton bunker. (Photo of the radio racks at the Bunker, Corsham)

8. Hack Green Nuclear Bunker, Cheshire

Hack Green Nuclear Bunker, Cheshire

Hack Green was first used during the Second World War, its purpose was to confuse German bombers looking for the vital railway junction at Crewe. In the 1950s, the site became part of the ROTOR project and a reinforced concrete bunker was built and became known as RAF Hack Green. After being abandoned for some years, the Home Office took it over and converted the bunker to Regional Government Headquarters which remained in use until 1992.

7. Scotland's Secret Bunker

Scotland's Secret Bunker

One of Scotland's best kept secret for over 40 years, the bunker is hidden beneath an innocent-looking Scottish farmhouse with a tunnel leading 100 feet down in to 24,000 square foot bunker.

6. Paddock, London

Paddock Bunker, London

Winston Churchill's Cabinet War Rooms under Whitehall are now a popular tourist attraction but in wartime Britain they were the government's hub for the UK's war effort but with fears that the central-London bunker might take a direct hit and be put of action an alternative was needed. The bunker could be accessed from a small surface building where a stair well spiraled down through layers of toughened concrete to the bunker's two underground levels. Each floor could be sealed with huge, air tight blast doors - combined with an air filtration system, this meant that poisonous gasses couldn't penetrate the bunker.

5. Cabinet War Rooms, London

Cabinet War Rooms, London

One of London's most famous tourist attractions. Situated under Whitehall in the centre of the Capital, the Cabinet War Rooms was Prime Minster, Winston Churchill's hideaway during the second, built in a reinforced basement beneath the treasury building.

4. Burlington Bunker, Wiltshire

Burlington Bunker Corsham, Wiltshire
Photo: © Crown Copyright

The former emergency relocations site for the government in the event of nuclear attack, the site has been abandoned since the 1980s. The bunker was designed to safely house up to 4000 government ministers and civil servants in a totally self sufficient, blast proof, radiation proof bunker 1km long and 200 meters across, 100 feet below Corsham in the event of an attack affecting London.

3. Kelvedon Hatch, Essex

Kelvedon Hatch

A 1950s Air Ministry bunker spread over three floors, accessible from a small cottage, the bunker is now open to the public as the "Secret Nuclear Bunker" museum. It was put in to operation in 1953 as an RAF ROTOR station, as part of a project to provided complete radar cover for the UK.

2. Command and Control Centre, Wiltshire

Corsham Computer Center

One of the UK's best kept secrets, CCC is an active government bunker located at Peel Circus in Corsham, above ground the site consists of nothing more than a doorway in to a mound of earth, obscured from public view by a ring of trees and vegetation. Sometimes referred to as Corsham Computer Centre) is located at the eastern end of Tunnel Quarry, a huge underground stone quarry which was converted in to an ammunition dump during the Second World War.

1. PINDAR Bunker, London

MOD Whitehall, London

PINDAR is one of the capital's best kept secrets. Construction work started in 1987 and five years the super secure bunker, situated beneath the Ministry of Defence's headquarters on Whitehall was completed. Known as PINDAR or the Joint Operations Centre the bunker was built within the shell of a Second World War Crisis Command Centre, part of which has remained operational post-war.

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