The top secret nuclear bunker behind Brislington back gardens

Close to TK Maxx and Halfords in Brislington, a low-lying estate is signposted ‘Government Buildings’. Within this complex, a former top secret nuclear bunker is hidden in plain sight behind the back gardens of Hungerford Road.

If you don’t look twice, you might miss the small rectangular sign stating its function, or the ‘Beware – this is a security controlled area’ warning that spans the entrance pillar.

The ‘Government Buildings’ are located next to Brislington’s retail park

In the wake of the Government revealing that their nuclear bunker beneath the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall has been reactivated in preparation for a ‘no-deal’ Brexit, we wondered if the same would apply for other nuclear shelters across the UK. And where exactly these nuclear shelters are.

Supposedly just a ‘Health Assessment Advisory Service’, there is more than meets the eye at Government Buildings on Flowers Hill.

According to Historic England, it’s the home to the Bristol War Room, a shelter established in 1953 to “protect the functions of regional government from the atomic bomb and to coordinate civil defence”.

A former nuclear bunker exists somewhere on this site

On first look, it certainly doesn’t feel too much like Brislington is hosting a secret military base, even if it might be inactive.

The Grade II listed bunker on the southern edge of the base was built to withstand an atomic bomb. It fits approximately 50 people and had control rooms, offices and communications rooms surrounding a map room, as well as toilets, dormitories and a canteen.

The bunker’s reinforced concrete external walls are 1.45m thick external walls, its roof 1.52m tick, with further reinforced concrete internal partitions as well as its own generators, air filtration system and water supply.

It has no windows due to it being designed to resist the effects of a nuclear explosion, and the only openings in the structure are three concrete-shrouded ventilator towers situated at the eastern end of the overhanging concrete roof over the plant rooms.

According to Historic England, the structure is remarkably intact and has been little altered since it was built. Of historic interest is that the Bristol War Room was built as the “first nuclear-proof design intended for civilian occupation in Great Britain, and marks the strategic transition in the post-war British Government’s appreciation of the effects of nuclear warfare”.

The construction of nuclear bunkers such as the War Room, intended to protect the functions of government against the atomic bomb, were agreed by 1951. Brislington’s War Room was initially the Regional Commissioners Office (RCO) but the term evolved to Regional War Room and then to its current name.

One war room was to be built in each of England’s ten Home Defence Regions, of which Bristol was one. London, exceptionally, was provided with four war rooms.

This bunker in Brislington was the war room for Home Defence Region 7, which covered a large area of the South West: Cornwall, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire.

Avon County Council later rented Bristol’s war room from the Home Office and used it as their County Borough Control until 1981.

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On a recent morning, it proved easy to wander onto the Government Buildings site and walk down to the buildings that spread out in regimented blocks, office-like and ordinary.

Bristol24/7 even tried our luck with the intercom to a door located bang in the middle of the complex, only to be escorted to the reception area.

After initial reluctance to answer any questions about the location of the supposed bunker, the security guard did eventually confirm that a former nuclear shelter is situated here, but it is not open to the general public.

He was unable to confirm what is used for or whose control it is under, although Bristol City Council insist the site is indeed owned and run by the Health Assessment Centre alone.

If you are keen to get a glimpse of the bunker itself, a trip down Hungerford Road might just take you there. With the quiet residential street backing onto the site, the shelter spans the width of a number of houses.

“It’s been like that for years. I understand it was a shelter for civil servants during the nuclear war or any subsequent war for that matter,” said one elderly resident, who did not want to give Bristol24/7 his name.

The roof of the bunker – dark and covered in foliage – rises above the high-security metal fencing at the end of his garden, casting a shadow over a patch of brambles.

As part of Operation Redfold, 3,500 British military personnel have been put on standby by the Government to deal with the possible disruptive aftermath of a no-deal Brexit outcome, as the approach of the original March 29 deadline picks up pace.

Located in one of London’s bunkers, they are said to be on hand to be deployed at 24 hours’ notice to help with things such as the transportation of food, fuel and other essentials around the UK.

Main photo courtesy of Google Maps

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