Not very secret then is it? (Kelvedon Hatch 'Secret' Nuclear Bunker)

Member Name: SusanLesley

Product:	Kelvedon Hatch 'Secret' Nuclear Bunker
Date:	13/08/01 (744 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Shows how things really were, It makes you think

Disadvantages: Dummies looked silly

When we first went to visit my sister and her partner and drove around the countryside of Essex I was amazed to see the signs directing me to the ‘Secret Nuclear Bunker’. I thought this was pretty funny really – it’s hardly a secret if it’s so well signposted!

Well last weekend we down there again and we all decided to pay it a visit. Our party consisted of mom, dad, my sister Helen, her partner Richard, my partner Dave and myself.

Richard and Helen had looked on the website at www.japar.demon.co.uk for any relevant information before we left home and then off we went to Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker.

To get there by car you need to be on the A128 Ongar to Brentwood road. This can be reached either by taking the M11 and then the A414 Chelmsford to Ongar road, then the A128 or by taking the M25, leaving at the interchange with the A12 (junction 28) and then the A1023 to Ongar.

The nearest railway stations are Brentwood or Shenfield, which are about 7 miles away from the bunker and taxis are available.

It is open every day from 1st March to 31st October from 10am until 4pm on weekdays and 10am until 5pm on weekends and Bank Holidays. From 1st November to 28th February it is open from Thursday to Sunday each week from 10am until 4pm daily.

It costs £5 for adults, £ 3 for children from 5 to 16 and £12 for a family ticket admitting two adults and two children. You do not pay to get in, you pay to get out. There are CCTV cameras throughout the entire building and you are constantly reminded that you are being watched, especially when it comes to putting your money in the honesty box at the end. Whether this is true or not I don’t know, we all put the correct money in the box so we had no need to find out!

We drove down a track from the road, passing the paint balling buildings and on to the car park, and walked a few yards along a woodland trail to a bungalow, which p
rovides the camouflage for the entrance to the bunker.

The bunker itself was built in 1952 concealed 75 feet below the Essex countryside. The building was top secret and even the locals and the contractors knew nothing of what was being constructed, and high fences were erected all round the site during the construction.

It was originally built to be the base from where the overall tactical control would come if Britain were ever to suffer an attack by nuclear bombs. It later became the Regional Government HQ where there could have been up to 600 personnel, including the Prime Minister, organising the survival of the civilian population in the aftermath of a nuclear war. There are other bunkers around the country, some of which are now open to the public, which would have been in contact with the HQ bunker in the event of nuclear war.

It is now privately owned and although the Government took all its equipment out before it was sold it has been reconstructed to show how it would have looked. It is ‘staffed’ by a series of dummies which I have to say are not very lifelike at all!

I’ll give you a few facts and figures before I go any further. It took 40,000 tons of concrete to build and houses various rooms on three levels. It was made to hold 110 tons of equipment and up to 600 hand picked Government personnel behind outer walls, which are made from ten feet thick reinforced concrete.

To begin the tour we entered the bungalow and collected a wand. No, we weren’t auditioning for the pantomime! The wand was part of the audio trail. It was a device about the size of a large TV remote control and had a speaker in the top and a set of numbered buttons, together with buttons for play, stop etc. At various points around the tour there were signs on the wall instructing us to press a certain number and press play to hear the commentary. There was also a wrist strap on each wand making it easier to carry. <
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There were different coloured wands for adults and children. I can’t comment on the usefulness of the children’s wands, as we were a party consisting of all adults. I found the commentary on the adult wands very useful if a little wordy at times. It does mean that each person can go at their own pace, but it does limit conversation between members of the group.

The information given by the wands not only included the factual but also gave an insight in places as to how people would have felt. For example it was mentioned how much psychological pressure the people in the bunker would have been under knowing that their loved ones were still outside. I couldn’t even begin to imagine that!

Guided tours are available for groups of more than four adults but have to be pre booked.

We began by walking down the entrance corridor designed to protect the bunker from any blast and also making it easier to defend against civilians who tried to get in to safety. Now there’s a creepy thought to start with.

Along the corridor there were various points at which we listened to our commentary wands and there were diagrams on the walls to show the plan of the bunker. These also showed the reinforcements around the outside edge of the bunker.

We were then told that we were at the bottom of the bunker and would be taking our tour and climbing up stairs to the other two levels.

The tour took us round the plant room where there were electricity generators, a water supply and an air purification system.

There were various rooms where the different sets of people would be based. There was a Scientist Centre where the experts would monitor any nuclear blast and predict the fall out patterns. The Civilian Operations room was where the Prime Minister and other ministers would be based.

Any retaliation to the nuclear attack would come from the Military Operations Command Centre. Also in this
room was a large safe to contain any Government documents, which were not available for general viewing. It would also contain guns to be used to defend the bunker against any civilians trying to get in and cyanide for consumption by the personnel inside the bunker if they realised that there was nothing left to go back outside to. Now there’s a horrible thought for you!

The bunker also holds a fully equipped BBC studio from where the Prime Minister could speak to the nation and all emergency broadcasts could be made. People were told to wrap their radios on tin foil so that they would survive the blast and then they would be able to unwrap them and listen to the broadcasts after the event! This made us smile as mom pointed out how large the radios would have been in 1952 – they must have taken up a lot of tin foil!

There were five dormitories to house the 600 personnel on constant ‘hot bed shifts’. As one lot got out to go on duty the next lot would get in to the already hot bed. Yuck!

The sick bay was equipped for emergency medical treatment and the people staffing the bunker would have included a surgeon and nurses.

The canteen operated around the clock providing hot food to the two messes located in the bunker. The canteen now signifies the end of the tour and has hot and cold food and drinks for sale together with gifts and memorabilia. This is where we handed back our wands and paid the admission fee.

There were toilets on each level and again outside near to the car park.

One word of warning though – the design of the bunker and wartime conditions mean that there is no lift so movement between the three levels is via wide shallow stairs. It is recommended that sensible footwear be worn. The temperature below ground is pretty much the same as it is above due to the air filtration plant so wear something suitable.

The whole thing was very interesting for people of all
ages, ad certain of the exhibits evoked memories of the Second World War for mom and dad.

It wasn’t quite as creepy as I expected it to be, partly due to the unreal dummies used to denote the people working down there – the Prime Minister looked more like a Spitting Image puppet!

It took us over an hour to walk all the way round and it was well worth it!

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