Essex’s Biggest Secret
Up until December 2004, Essex had a secret. A massive secret. Not a legion of Essex girls to be unleashed on an unsuspecting Kent countryside. Not Jamie Oliver’s cooking talents. No, this secret lay deep beneath the fields of a quiet country farm.
Now you can find out for yourself, as I did today.
A small, deceptively innocuous bungalow acts as the entrance to a secret world. This is no ordinary bungalow. It may appear to be a neat little farm cottage, but its outside veneer conceals steel shutters, bombproof doors and an 18 inch reinforced ceiling.
The bungalow sits at one end of a 120 yard long tunnel. At the other is one of the largest and deepest nuclear bunker complexes in the UK. Well, one of the largest and deepest we’re “allowed” to know about anyway.
Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker began life as a ROTOR station (radar and early warning system) in 1952. After a refit, from the late 1960s up until 1992 it would have housed up to 600 people, possibly including the Prime Minister him/herself in the event of nuclear war. They would have been responsible for organising the survival of the civilian population - if there was anybody else left - in the aftermath of an attack.
After being decommissioned in December 1994, it was bought by the original landowner and opened to the public. Presumably the government now have somewhere more luxurious to go if they need to. (Hint - according to this).
You can now walk around what used to be one of the most secret places in Britain, seeing it as it would have been in the 1980s with its operations room, canteen, command centre, dormitory, sick bay, fully equipped BBC studio and blast doors - a community capable of sustaining and defending itself for up to three months without needing to step outside.
Visiting the bunker was an unnerving experience: seeing common everyday items in such a surreal place, maps of the area I live - the very road my house is on marked out, all in preparation for an unimaginable event. I can remember them regularly testing the old air raid siren in Claygate back during the 1980s, to be used as part of the 4 minute warning system. By that time, the selected few would have buried themselves 75 feet below the Essex countryside.
Today we were almost the only visitors. At one stage, I stood alone in the bunker’s main stairwell. I was genuinely quite scared. We were there for a day out. Imagine though the feelings of the people who would have been inside if the event for which it was built had ever happened.
Its left me wondering whether they really would have been the lucky ones. I think you’d have been luckier if you were annihilated in the original blast. An extract from the audio tour:
“I don’t suppose you have given the next war very much thought, but suffice to say that there would have been only about three or four million people who would have survived. There would be temperatures of minus 20 to minus 40 degrees. There’d be no harvest for at least three years. The first one would have been burnt by the flash or the cold would have killed it. For the second you’d be too lethargic and in any case the radiation levels would have been too high. And for the third harvest you’d have to scrape away three or four inches of contaminated soil and sow by hand any seeds that you hadn’t already eaten. All this time you’d be contending with marauding gangs of people who have radiation sickness. They’re not being fed, having a limited life span and what they want is your food. There’s not much of a sanction you have against somebody with a limited life span. In effect, in all respects, you’d be going back to medieval times. I think Einstein summed it up very well when he said that if the next war was fought with the atom bomb then the one after that would be fought with bow and arrows.”
If you’re in the area, Kelvedon Hatch is well worth a visit. Its easy to find: Come off the M25 at junction 28, take the A1023 to Brentwood then the A128 to Ongar and follow the signs to “Secret Nuclear Bunker”.
The Counter Room - the bunker’s equivalent of a Post Room - where all incoming communications would be sorted and passed to the relevant departments. The main form of communication was via teleprinter. No point in having advanced satellite and microwave communication technologies in the bunker if they no longer exist on the surface!
The fully equipped BBC Studio, from where the Prime Minister would broadcast to the remainder of the country in the aftermath of the attack, after the people had taken their radios out of the tin foil they had wrapped around them to prevent damage from the electromagnetic pulse of the blast.
The Plotting Room, used first as an ops room and then for plotting where the bombs had gone off and where the radiation was spreading after the bunker became a Regional Government Headquarters.
The Plant Room, containing equipment for filtering, scrubbing and cooling the bunker’s air supply. The main air fan was capable of replacing the air in the bunker in just two minutes.
The main stairwell, connecting all three levels of the bunker.
The room where the Commissioner - a Cabinet Minister in war time - would have remained on duty 24 hours a day. The Commissioner would have been given emergency powers to govern. A few days after the bomb exploded, people on the surface would have run out of essential drug supplies. The Commissioner would have been responsible for issuing the police with euthanasia orders to put the population out of its misery. Using their pistols, they’d have started with the mentally handicapped, old and infirm, before turning their attention on the millions of us who would have been in considerable difficulties.
The Prime Minister’s room. He/she may have broadcast to the nation, giving survivors a bit of hope, maybe some help and the promise of a little food too. (Can you see John Major it bed?)
The Main Adminstration Room, where civil servants would have formed a mini-government if necessary. Apparently they wouldn’t have been the top brass, but those with skills in logistics and administration.
The dormitories where bunker residents would “hot bed” - eight hours in bed before another guy got into it for his eight hours kip, before handing it on to the third. In these two tier bunks staff would sleep while not on duty, until it was time to emerge from the bunker or more likely, if there was nothing to come up to after three months, to pop their cyanide capsule.
