Not all bunkers were of military origin. During all periods of bunker construction there were civil protected sites of one sort or another. From air raid shelters to emergency control centres, and also those specialised ones for the utilities to keep some personnel safely available in case of emergency. This page will deal with some of those. Firstly, all local authorities were required to have an emergency control centre during the Cold war, and some were very well protected. A few authorities regarded the requirement less seriously and labelled up a small room and did little more. Some also went right over the top and built something to rival some of the military efforts. A few used the opportunity to make a genuinely useful emergency control centre, which can be used for any civil emergency as a central point of communication and coordination. One such site is owned by Uttlesford District Council in Saffron Walden in Essex. It was one of the last of the Cold War period structures to be built, and was constructed in the early 1990's when the Council took over the old hosital and built a new office building on the end of this attractive Victorian structure. They made a state of the art control centre in the basement of the new office block. It is used now and is a first class facility. A few members of Subterranea Britannica went on an organised visit in July 2001 and were made welcome by the Emergency Planning Officer, who showed us the facility.


This attractive Victorian building was the hospital until 1988 and was then taken over as Uttlesford District Council offices. A new building, out of shot to the left, was built in matching colours and under this is the Emergency Control bunker.


Entry to the bunker is by this steel and concrete blast door, and another similar door inside as an air lock arrangement. There is a small decontamination shower and another door leading to the standby generator room inside here.


The first room inside the bunker, a communal area with doors off to the dormitory and sick bay, the toilets and washing area and the Operations room and communications room also has the small but fully equipped kitchen area. I can vouch that the coffee machine works!


This first view of the operations room shows it has an unusual shape, and the semi circular wall matches the building above. The maps are of the surrounding area. There are telephones for ordinary and private networks.

The second view shows the window into the communications room and the door back into the communal area, where the entrance and kitchen are located.


In the communications room are desks for various operations and this Raynet site for radio communications connected to a lattice mast behind the building.


This is the TSX50 telephone equipment. Much smaller and more sophistacated than the huge arrays of kit in the older bunkers. All fully functional here too.


This shows the washing area in the toilet room. Despite other equipment being stored here, this is all functional and the hand pumped toilets are also fully working.


In the room opposte are bunks and mattresses all ready for use. There is also a small sick bay.


At the end of the sick bay is a small emergency exit door. It leads vial a concrete tube, big enough to crawl along, to -


this vertical shaft with a metal door on top, behind the building.


This is a small facility, but fully independent and equipped to function, whatever is happening outside. It has a standby generator and sophisticated air filtering equipment.


We even got to see the plans! The bunker is the top and left two thirds of this diagram. This is an excellent example of what the better civil bunkers were like. The owners of this one keep it ready and still use it for emergencies and they find it useful. It is probably more protected than would ever be necessary outside war now, but none the worse for that.


Most Councils had some kind of bunker, and South Cambs Distric Council had theirs in this house, on the Corner of Hills Road and Harvey Road in Cambridge. For interior shots see HERE. This is one of three bunkers within about half a mile of where I work. RSG4 is one, this is another and the WW2 Railway Control bunker outside Cambridge Station is the third. Cambridgeshire House shown here, had its basement reinforced and you can see the surplus windows were filled in.


Looking down Harvey Road, which was where Maynard Keynes lived as a child. This town is full of history! The bunker is on the right here.


A couple of streets away outside the station is a hefty building, made of the local bricks, once part of the collection of buildings at the end of Cambridge locomotive depot. It has recently been converted to a hotel and the rusty old shutters on the basement windows are now painted red. I never knew what the place was until recently so I missed it in its derelict glory! First a look at it from the rear. This shows the rear entrance to the bunker.


A closer look at the entrance shows this was modified and presumably the bunker was made in the basement of an existing building as a protection for the Control.


Looking along the building at open shutters.


Open and closed shutters over the steel Crittall windows.