Made a trip this week to Scotlands not-so-secret Bunker, the Regional War Room (NZ) just outside Anstruther. It's now a cold war musem. I'd recommend it. Packed with genuine bits a pieces from the various guises of the facility over the years. Plenty of good stuff on the ROC and the nuclear preparations. £9 odd for a good couple of hours, so it's not the usual tourist rip-off.
Snaps:
The topside Rotor Guard House, which doubles as the entrance and the shop. Curious, these deliberately non-descript buidlings, anyone know why the roof profiles are so high pitched? Something to do with the vent in the dormer?
The main entrance tunnel, enhanced by some (non-original) nifty flourescent lighting.
Plotting boards for fallout prediction amongst other things. Most of the exhibits in the museum are sourced from other bunkers/collectors I believe. When bought it was bare, after the MOD/RAF left.
Radar displays originating from RAF Buchan. Used to track those Russain snoopers over the North Sea.
The GPO Frame Room, for those of a telecoms disposition...
A great collection on telecoms history in the Frame Room. Plently of information on the old WB (Warning Broadcast?) systems, which would have given us all a few minutes warning of nuclear obliteration.
A soviet designed air-to-air missile. Couldn't help but wonder where the museum got hold of this..
A couple of what I think are RN tracking radars, rusting around the car park.
No cold war snoop is complete without the obligatory ROC Post hunt. After the bunker I headed off to find Gauldry ROC, located on the edge of a field in Northern Fife. Very overgrown, it took me 3 attempts to spot the entrance. Sorry not a great collection of snaps, some Farmer Palmer decided to start shooting at something and I'm not 100% sure it wasn't me. He also scared the bejesus out of my dug, so one snap to show the lids been ripped well off then a sharp exit. Didn't get a chance to get the torch out and climb down.
The topside Rotor Guard House, which doubles as the entrance and the shop. Curious, these deliberately non-descript buidlings, anyone know why the roof profiles are so high pitched? Something to do with the vent in the dormer?
A great collection on telecoms history in the Frame Room. Plently of information on the old WB (Warning Broadcast?) systems, which would have given us all a few minutes warning of nuclear obliteration.
Wire Broadcast. A 72kHz carrier was superimposed on the relevant telephone circuits and demodulated in the receiver. The one shown is the WB400. We had one of these at BBC Droitwich, but they were superseded by the WB1400 / 1401 which maintained the batteries from the d.c. telephone line supply. The older WB400 (shown) was fitted with a replacable dry-battery, and emitted a 'tick... tick...' when switched on. The later versions were silent, but were activated by the Police at their Carrier-Control Points for exercises, to which we had to report back with the message transmitted. An ex-copper I know said the CCPs were great for setting one's watch, as the normal circuits INTO the CCPs carried the Speaking Clock.
Odd times on night shift, when the devil found work for idle hands, one of us would sneak down the crypt with a sig-genny and place it across the line with a 400Hz or so off-set, thus making a loud 'HOOT!' in the duty room, to the annoyance of the others.
Other wire-broadcast units were used to trigger air-raid sirens remotely.
Other wire-broadcast units were used to trigger air-raid sirens remotely.
Guess it must have been a major cabling/equipment network to get air sirens to simply blast at the right moment.? Judging by the time it was de-commissioned (late 80s?) it must have kept many a BT engineer in OT! Any idea from where it was ultimately controlled? Regional/locally initiated?
Here's a handy piece of 'compare-and-contrast' that appeared recently.
A lesson in how the experts in this enterprise built a serious bunker when there was nothing like a budget to worry about.
If you don't read the story, it has 5 yards if concrete over the ceiling, is mounted on a base that decouples it from the ground (to prevent the shock of a nuclear blast being fed into the interior structure) and it is also described as being constructed to withstand the overpressure of the surrounding air.
(These features, as anyone who has an interest, or has been to the Scottish bunker will know, but given the condition today of many Soviet-era domestic buildings, I wonder how many of these "unseen" construction methods were actually installed by the contractors. Today, many Russian people are finding that their flats have been built without items such as reinforcement in the concrete, and of sub-standard materials as corrupt official were paid to 'look the other way' as the builders and contractors pocketed the money that should have been used for these things. Today, many building of the Cold War era are simply falling apart, with entire sections falling off, reminiscent of the gas explosions that we saw result in sections of tall flats collapse here, when they were poorly designed, with each floor resting on the one below - so when one went, all those above followed.)
It had 50 rooms and was used as Western Operational Command until the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was in place from 1977.
This one is special, as it has been provided with guards since it was 'discarded', so has not suffered the usual vandalism and looting. Most are raided for their metal as scrap.
It is for sale if anyone is interested, but the sale is conditional on the new owner preserving it as a command bunker - so your choice of use is limited to a Cold War museum, or maybe a Cold War museum if that first option did not suit you.
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Regional War Room NZ - Scotlands Secret Bunker
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