AN INCREDIBLE apocalyptic bunker with blast-proof corridors is buried below 6,500 newbuild homes.
The Cold War fortification was build at the RAF Alconbury bases in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, in 1988.
Sitting on a bed of gravel, the bunker is made of steel and reinforced concrete – costing £50million to construct.
More than 30 years on, the site is now also home to a number of stylish newbuild properties along with weekly food trucks, a school plaza and 200 acres of woodland.
RAF Alconbury was an active airbase from 1938 up to 1995, surviving attacks from Luftwaffe during World War Two.
In 1988, construction of the bunker began with the site “designed to withstand a direct nuclear attack”.
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The site also had a purpose of secretly analysing data collected by spy planes during the Cold War.
Blast-proof guillotine doors divide a number of corridors inside, The Telegraph reports.
Individuals inside the bunker would take off more protective clothing at each door before they reached decontamination showers.
Further underground is a power plant and communications hub with an entire wall filled with buttons and dials.
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At the very back is a briefing room containing a circular metal door, which doubles as an escape tunnel commonly known as a “a dead man’s hatch”.
In the event of a breach, anyone inside would have to crawl traipse through the passageway to get out the bunker – though the outside world would likely be filled with radiation.
The site had been due to become a road and rail freight terminal before it was purchased in 2009.
Becca Britton, project manager at developers Urban & Civic, said restoring the site took almost a year.
The bunker itself was largely in good touch, but surrounding features such as the watchtower and areas damaged by bomb explosion needed restoring.
Fast-forward 15 years, more than 6,000 homes now surround the bunker at Alconbury Weald.
The two-mile runway has also been planted, allowing the thousands of new residents to walk along where planes formerly took off.
Speaking when the first residents began moving in back in 2020, Becca said: “The Cold War context can be unfriendly and hostile,.
“We don’t wish to deny or move away from it, but it’s important to warm it up so people don’t feel like they are living on a base.”
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Jamie Phillips
