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Also, Fukushima is only rendering about 500sq miles uninhabitable for (currently optimistically estimated) 25 years while Chernobyl is about 900sq miles for over 25 years so far. It won't return to average radiation levels for over 20,000 years. You can live there now... if you don't want to have children and accept a higher risk of cancer. About 600 elderly live there now. The animals in the area have mutations, stillbirths, etc. But, those that survive handle the radiation better as time goes on and thrive from the lack of human predation and habitat destruction.

The Chernobyl radiation area 's sort of butterfly shaped tho and due to wind pattern there is a second 'wing' / exclusion area which is also uninhabitable of similar size- so about 1800sq miles total.

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/...

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

They were operated by the Royal Observer Corps and originally existed in WW2 to report the flight paths of enemy plans back to HQ. During the Cold War the focus changed and more posts were added and the bunker network was created - approximately 1600 were built across the UK.

A superb website exists here: http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/roc/index2.shtml

Matt

Indeed. We have a slightly smaller bunker in Chislehurst, in SE London, and our local estate agents went out of their way to let prospective customers know that Madonna had had a look (or maybe they had sent her a flyer). Not as good value as this one though. £3m was the asking price for our titchy bunker, which I spent many happy childhood hours trying to break. Some childhood friends advised that an old codger who wandered in as they were piling up the milk crates in the corridors, in preparation for a major fire attack, that it went 200 feet underground but the entrances had been concreted over. I do hope the swimming pool doesn't fall in.

This site has some good info. http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/c/chislehurst/
as do the Chislehurst Society
http://www.chislehurst-society.org.uk/publications /cockpit.html

Not sure if it's sold now, but I'm sure the agents will be happy to advise
http://www.knightfrankglobal.com/glasshouse/propde tails.htm

American readers may be interested to learn that they - or at least their grandparents - paid for the construction of the Guardian telephone exchange under Manchester, and several others. It was a cold war NATO project to protect comms against atom bombs on the city centres. There were similar exchanges under London (Kingsway) and Birmingham (Anchor). They were built in the early 1950s, but are now obsolete. Although the underground exchanges have gone, the cable tunnels that run from these city centre locations to the ourskirts are still very much in use. Details of all of these and many other 'secret' underground structures in the UK can be found on the Subterranea Britannica web site.

Subterranea Brittanica is a useful resource for stuff like this in the UK

Raynet were to be the backbone of radio communications during the Cold War in the event of a nuclear strike on the UK - for details.

Here is a great site covering lots of other Cold War bunkers and radar sites. They are updating it all the time, adding pics, etc.

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/

Matt

Thanks for that

I share a somewhat similar interest - Cold War bunkers, old railway tunnels and subterranea. The main UK group, Subterranea Brittanica, has many archives of interesting locations, but suffers this same problem of how much to disclose.