Disused Civil Defence Bunker, Nunthorpe © Mick Garratt cc-by-sa/2.0

2005

NZ5412 : Disused Civil Defence Bunker, Nunthorpe

taken 19 years ago, near to Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, England

Disused Civil Defence Bunker, Nunthorpe

Built in the 1960's the entrance and air vents to the extensive underground bunker for the administration of Middlesbrough can just be seen painted green. Once this was secret now it's almost hidden by undergrowth. Further reading: Link

(Archive Link

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Category: Historical item

This photo is linked from: Automatic Clusters: · Middlesbrough [2] ·

1:50,000 Modern Day Landranger(TM) Map © Crown Copyright

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Grid Square: NZ5412, 20 images (more nearby 🔍)
Photographer: Mick Garratt (more nearby)
Date Taken: Thursday, 9 June, 2005 (more nearby)
Submitted: Thursday, 9 June, 2005
Subject Location: OSGB36: NZ 54 12 [1000m precision]
WGS84: 54:30.2937N 1:9.5926W

NW	N	NE
W	Go	E
SW	S	SE

Image classification(about): Geograph (First for NZ5412) · First in 5 Years (TPoint) (about)

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Discussion on NZ5412

NZ5412 : Disused Civil Defence Bunker, Nunthorpe

Nuclear fall out shelter at Great Ayton

Then in 1963 - For many weeks travellers on the Nunthorpe to Stokesley road were puzzled by the activities of building contractors on the roadside near Tree Brigg Farm. Many like me, thought it was the start of yet another petrol station.

It is in fact a thermo-nuclear fall-out shelter and observation post, one of 870 being built throughout the country by the Home Office as part of a strategic defence against all out nuclear attack.

Measuring 18ft x 10ft these bunkers, buried 12 ft underground, are built of reinforced concrete and cost £2000 each. The Home office is also building 17 underground Administrative Regional Government Headquarters from where 150 specially designated staff will co-ordinate services and communications. A further 20 UK Warning and Monitoring Headquarters are also being established throughout the country.

If the Soviet Union decides to launch its nuclear missiles on this part of the country, two part time members of the Royal Observer Corps will entomb themselves in these cold dank chambers, and breathing filtered air, they will use their measuring equipment to relay information to the operations room at Regional Group Headquarters at Durham on the size of the blast, the direction of the atomic cloud and the amount of radiation on the surface.

I was told that the Observers were likely to remain in these shelters for as long as three weeks and to relieve the strain and tedium, the Government in one of its rare light-hearted moments, has kindly agreed to supply a set of dominoes, a pack of playing cards and a dart board, all of which might have been better appreciated had not the shelter’s only illumination been a tiny torch bulb running off a 12-volt battery. As to the sanitary arrangements in these bunkers – well it’s best not to ask.

“Should an attack take place we are in a position to give an overall picture of the amount of radiation in any given part of the country” a Civil Defence spokesman told me. Some hope.

What he failed to explain was if a surprise attack took place, how the part time observers were going to get from their place of work, or homes, to the shelters in time, given that Fylingdales monitoring station near Whitby, offered just five minutes warning of such an attack. Another unanswered question was what would the observers do when they finally surfaced to a bleak uninhabited moonscape.

Other bunkers are to be located at Redcar, Saltburn, Eaglescliffe, Loftus, Hinderwell, Castleton, Osmotherly and Upsall.

Now in 1998 - The Tree Brigg shelter is still by the road side and many others can still be seen around the area. They were de-commissioned in 1992 when then Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke mindful of the thaw in the cold war decided they were no longer necessary. The Regional, and Monitoring Headquarters have been sold off, their powerful aerials being of particular interest to mobile telephone companies and the aircraft industry. But the local bunkers remain, of little use to anyone. The land they occupy was leased to the Government, but these leases have now expired, leaving the landowners with the problem of disposal. They have little practical use apart from storage, and are likely to remain – like the pill boxes of the last war - as symbols of a frightening era.

This article originally appeared in the May 1998 issue of Now & Then Magazine

Posted by Mick G on Fri, 13 Jun 2008 (0 comments)

Geograph - photograph every grid square

NZ5412 : Disused Civil Defence Bunker, Nunthorpe

taken 19 years ago, near to Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, England

Discussion on NZ5412