Places to Go

Battle of Britain Control Room
Cabinet War Rooms
Eden Camp
Fort Widley
Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker 8/12/99
Hellfire Corner (Dover Castle)
RAF Holmpton 30/7/05
Imperial War Museum
Kelvedon Hatch Bunker 30/7/00
Scotland's Secret Bunker (Anstruther)
Western Approaches Command Centre

Battle of Britain Control Room

RAF Uxbridge
Uxbridge
Middlesex

Tel: 01895 237144

Underground operations room with all the plotting tables and other parapheralia, preserved exactly as it was on the morning of 15th September 1940. Individual and group visits, by appointment only. Contact Warrant Officer Chris Wren.

(A.E.)

Cabinet War Rooms

Clive Steps
King Charles Street
London SW1

Tel: 0171 930 6961

Churchill's underground wartime headquarters, recreated to look as if they have been left as they were at the time of the Blitz. All telephone equipment on show. Open daily 10:00-17:15, admission charge.

(A.E.)

Eden Camp

Tel: 01653 697777

Open daily 10.00-17.00, from mid-February to 23rd December. Located off the A64 York to Scarborough road at the junction of the A169 to Pickering. A modern history theme museum set in a 1942 prisoner of war camp, featuring a prefab bomber command room, replica Spitfire aircraft and a growing collection of military vehicles.

(A.E.)

Eden Camp now has its own web site.

Fort Widley

The second easternmost of the Portsdown forts, part used as a riding stable. Access to the rest is open for guided tours (on the hour) from 2 - 4 p.m. on Sundays, Easter Sunday to September for £2. No guns, but extensive ramparts, tunnels and a well preserved civil defence bunker. Telephone for more details.

(J.B.)

Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker

NGR: SJ645478

(Postal address: PO Box 127, Nantwich, Cheshire CW5 8AQ)

Tel: 01270 629219
Fax: 01270 629218
E-mail: coldwar@dial.pipex.com

This former radar station and Regional Government Headquarters building has been turned into a cold war museum. Most of the bunker is now open to the public. You can see a collection of military vehicles, displays relating to radar technology and military communications, Royal Observer Corps and Civil Defence Corps uniforms and equipment, the bunker's decontamination room, control room, plant room, Regional Commissioner's and civil servants' offices and dormitories, a fully equipped military radio room, Russian defence equipment, working carrier control point and carrier receiver, conference room, BBC office and radio studio, 17000-gallon water tank, a large collection of geiger counters and other radiation-measuring instruments, communications centre, BT apparatus room, telephone switchboard, Home Office radio room, fallout scientists' room, fire and rescue control room, replica ROC post, two video theatres, sick bay, NAAFI-style canteen and souvenir shop. You can see the TV version of Protect and Survive, prepared for broadcast on all channels before attack. This and several other official films are shown uncut and without comment. Young children can look for the `spy mice' hidden throughout the bunker.

The bunker now has its own web site, which gives details of opening times, admission prices and how to get there.

(R.L.)

Hellfire Corner

Tour of once secret wartime installations buried deep inside the cliffs includes tour of communications room, with large quantities of old switchboards, amplifiers and other equipment. The nuclear command centre of the 1960s is not yet on show. Dover Castle is in the care of English Heritage and a single admission fee is charged for admission to all the exhibits. Tours of the secret underground tunnels leave approximately every 15 minutes in summer and every 45 minutes in winter; the tour takes 50 minutes. The last tour starts at 17:00 in summer and at 15:00 in winter. The castle opens daily at 10:00 and closes at 18:00 (16:00 October to March).

(A.E.)

RAF Holmpton

Tel: 01964 630208

RAF HOLMPTON (UNDERGROUND BUNKER TOURS)

The R3 Bunker is open to visitors with a full guided tour through 50 years history of the sites RAF use from a 1950's Rotor Radar Station to its later use as HQ RAF Support Command (War). Currently still in use today and home to the Defence Archives Agency.

RAF Holmpton provides public guided tours - group visits - educational visits and evening tours throughout the year and full details may be obtained from the official Defence Archives website.

Imperial War Museum

(This is now open - R.L.)

Kelvedon Hatch Bunker

Tel: 01277 364883

Open daily 10:00-16:00 with tours on the hour. Formely top secret, this huge underground structure is an excellent example of an R4 Rotor bunker built in the early 1950s as a Sector Operations Centre for the Metropolitan Sector of Fighter Command. It later became a Sector Operations Centre for UK Warning & Monitoring Organisation, and then the Regional Government Headquarters for London. Being well hidden in a wood surrounded by farmland, it is not easy to find. It is just to the west of the A128 about half way between Pilgrims Hatch and Chipping Ongar, near Kelvedon Hatch. Admission: Adults £5, Children £3, Family £12.

The bunker now has its own web site, which gives details of opening times, admission prices and how to get there.

(A.E./R.L.)

Scotland's Secret Bunker

Tel: 01333 310301
Fax: 01333 312040

This is one of the underground nuclear war command centres equipped in the 1960s, known to devotees as Anstruther. It is open from Easter until the end of October, from 10:00 to 18:00. Parties and coaches welcome. The communications centre, emergency broadcasting studios and computer room are all preserved with mostly authentic artefacts.

(A.E.)

The Anstruther museum now has its own web site.

Western Approaches Command Centre

Tel: 0151 227 2008

This underground headquarters was the command centre for the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II. Visitors today can see the RAF plotting room, the main operations room, the cypher room, teleprinter room and the telephone exchange. Open all year round but confirm by ringing the number shown.

(A.E.)

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