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Underground 'Cold War City' For Sale
Hogwash McFly writes "A huge underground complex that was built as a nuclear refuge for the British Prime Minister in the 1950s has been put on the market. Code-named Burlington, the bunker now has a population of only four maintenance workers, yet sprawls over 240 acres and accommodates 60 miles of roads. Underground power stations supply energy for 100,000 street lamps and amenities include a railway station and a pub called the Rose and Crown. Among ideas suggested for the £5,000,000 bunker include a data centre, wine cellar, rave club or fifties theme park. It is not clear whether a tank for keeping laser-equipped sharks is included, however."
I've always wanted to start my own city.....
There's no place like localhost
I recall some Canadian relatives discussing a bunker called the Diefen Bunker. I think they said it's a tourist attraction now. They give tours as if it were a museum.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Imagine the killer bud you could grow in that place.
as stated before, we really need to filter out these damned ad articles.
But... isn't he going to need it when the terrorists attack?
http://www.coderoshi.com/
I think it's worth spending that money just so you can say you live in motherlands basement.
The Canadian version is the Diefenbunker. Located in the village of Carp (near Ottawa), it's now decomissioned, and a tourist attraction. Guided tours are available in the summer.
Mmmmmmm. Floor pie!
I don't know about anyone else, but I'd like to turn in into my own British Bat Cave. Kind of like where a combination of James Bond and Bruce Wayne would live.
Do I get the "four maintainance workers" with the city? Is slavery illegal underground? Oh, and I welcome our new underground mole-people overlords (couldn't help myself)
public class null extends java applet { System.out.print ("Tabula Rasa"); }
For a time, the massive bunker's only inhabitant was Margaret Thatcher's previously unknown geek son, who wasted away his days coding, playing D&D with his online friends, and playing scrabble against himself while sheepishly avoiding the opposite sex.
He is noted to have posted on many USENET boards, "oh yeah? Well you should see MY mom's basement, where I live. It's soooo much cooler than yours."
Sorta makes you wonder what kind of place they replaced it with.
> ...sprawls over 240 acres and accommodates 60 miles of roads...
...100,000 street lamps...
60 miles of 30 foot wide road covers 218 acres.
>
That's 417 street lamps per acre, or one for every three feet of your 60 miles of road.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The history of the place has to be put together from different parts of the article. At first glance it seems that it was created from scratch for government officials but read the whole thing: First it was a mine which was worked out. The mine was converted into an ammo dump for WWII, at which time it became a military installation. And then in the 50's, before ICBMs and missile submarines, it was finally made into a bomb shelter. Fairly reasonable then when nuclear warheads numbered in the dozens worldwide. The only real question is why it wasn't decommissioned in the 70's (when ICBMs and subs made getting there from London unlikely) and turned into something else instead of waiting til now.
Starring Christopher Walker, Brendan Fraser, Alicia Silverstone, and Sissy Spacek. Oh, nevermind!
Click here or here.
Here is a report on the bunker with many photos. It is actual the "Burlington" bunker in Corsham, declassified by the MOD (==DOD). More photo's here.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
The Federal Government of Germany tried to sell of its bunker some years ago.
Despite some more or less reasonable offers it never got sold as the potential buyers were not willing to accept certain obligations, such as equipping it with a new structural fire protection. It is now sealed and flooded.
Too bad, actually
Alex
Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder
But I just could not find an aerial photo! WTF!
A guy walks into a bar... well, I forgot the joke, but the punchline is that he's an alcoholic.
They should make it into a real life Half-Life theme park. That would kick ass.
60 miles of 30 foot wide road covers 218 acres.
umm...yeah, you see, in the middle of the american heartland, in the south, southwest, and west, 30 foot wide roads are pretty common place. However, in places that are really cramped for space (New England and old England, for example) you have roads that are noticably less wide. Some one way roads in my neck of the woods (Boston) are barely wide enough to accomodate 1-way traffic. The street on which I live, on which it is permitted to park on both sides of the street mind you, is about 12 feet across. There are even some "roads" in Boston's oldest neighborhoods that really are just narrow alleys that could never accomodate a car.
By road here, they could mean a series of very narrow one way roads and well-paved footpaths. Or maybe everyone in the underground city was supposed to be riding a vespa (a very logical idea, I'd think), or something similar, in which case all of one's roads could essentially be well-paved footpaths. In fact, in such a situation, electric scooters would be the ideal vehicle (low-power requirements, non-polluting, not very loud).
my pet machine
In the plains east of Denver there are a number of abandoned Titan missile silos. They were built under land leased from farmers and ranchers, and when the missiles and classified equipment were removed the government returned the structures to the landowners. For many years, teenagers snuck into them at night to toke up and hook up, and the owners had little success trying to block the entrances.
Occasionally a developer would announce a plan to turn them into energy-saving underground homes, but none of those schemes got very far...by now, I understand most of the owners have sprung for a load of Ready-Mix to close the entrances for good.
rj
SOLD
I hear some company by the name of, The Umbrella Corporation, just bought it.
When work feels overwhelming, remember that you're going to die.
and i've got just the name for it...
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
Here's a tour. It's a huge installation. Not in bad shape for a bunker, but will need considerable work to be usable.
Which is why the Yamantau Mountain complex in Russia, some 1 300 km from Moscow, has raised so many eyebrows.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.
How about 'the worlds largest library?'
Not only would it have tons of books (literally), it would also act as a time capsule when the zombies come.
If I purchase it will they deliver it to my Texas ranch?
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
... and buy that thing for the slashdot community! It's only 5.5 £ / user.
/. servers, underground soccer, ...
We could do whatever we want with it. Put in a thick internet pipe and have some fun. Lan parties, new secure location for the
"Hundreds of swivel chairs delivered in 1959 are still unpacked."
Frickin' rotating chairs!
It's value as a bomb shelter went away when slow flying bombers were no longer the weapon delivery mechanism. As the article says, once the warning time dropped to 4 minutes, evacuating to the shelter became impossible.
I believe I found a page with photos of the shelter in question. Not as glamorous as the article makes it out to be, but meh, it would make a good film location for a remake of Day of the Dead, perhaps.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Crikey, just sell it to Michael Jackson.
Imagine the possibilities!
... to find Vault 13. It's in England!
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Or... you could put a house on top of the main entrance and have your mom live in the house while you live in the "basement".
Geez, if you're going to post on
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela