Scotland's Secret Bunker

Wayne is an air base not really an air base when it's a hundred feet under the ground welcome to Scotland unplugged and the secret hiding under a very strange looking farmhouse [Music] to the scene it's the height of the Cold War two Global superpowers are squaring up to each other carving up Europe like a giant grassy chessboard the Western world is petrified about a man in the Kremlin intent on expanding his creepily totalitarian Empire hard to imagine eh all down the east coast of the UK that are RAF bases early Warning Systems radar stations hidden in giant golf balls at any given time there is at least one sometimes two fully fueled nuke top Vulcan bombers sitting on a Runway with a crew on standby if the warning goes off they're Airborne in two minutes later submarines will Circle the globe with enough Weaponry to kick-start the apocalypse and Rewind The Clock 66 million years to that time we were hit by the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs assuming it does all kick off what do you do how do you keep things running this is Raf and Strother a nuclear bunker hidden underneath a very strange looking Scottish Farmhouse a hundred feet underground built on two levels it has space for 300 people who would have operated on a hotbed system [Music] basically you work an 18-hour shift then swap beds with a lucky punter who's about to do the same thing it has its own water supply it had its own BBC Studio it has two Cinemas a massive control room that you could probably run from a smartphone these days and a cushy office here behind me for the Secretary of State overlooking the whole thing let's be honest though from the outside it looks kind of weird most people watching this will probably know that I'm a farmer's son I spent a lot of time in and around farm houses and none of them look like that I mean Scottish farmhouses don't have front porches for a start no one wants to sit outside on a rocking chair tune tobacco when it's -6 windchill or Worse slight drizzle well it does look like as the fake houses over other nuclear bunkers this one at clevedon hatch in Essex for example it was originally built between 1951 and 1953 as a rotor 3 radar Station tracking incursions into UK airspace as things started to heat up and the tech became a bit stodgy it was repurposed when I first heard about this I wondered who would be down here and for how long you sort of get this idea about the elite this can a random tag that you stick on a shadowy group of people the people in The Gnome that people on the inside all tucked up and safe while the rest of us stagger around with peeling skin bleeding from the ears and foaming at the eye sockets but who would that have been in Scotland at the time there was no government or Scottish government then support minor Royals celebrities imagine having to set out the end of days down here for a couple of years with prince Andrew The Proclaimers and we Jimmy kranky I think I take my chances with the reaper turns out I got it wrong on several counts first of all the Fallout from nuclear weapons is very radioactive and the more radioactive something is the more unstable is the radioactivity and nuclear weapons drops 90 every seven hours two weeks down here and you're pretty much good to go but it was capable of keeping people safe for three months and this wasn't some kind of Arc like in every Apocalypse movie you've ever seen it was a bit more Sinister than that this was a regional seat of government there'd been a plan to construct citadels under London and run things from there but the powers that be realized London would be hit pretty quickly far better to spread government throughout the land and make sure they survived this was the regional seat of government for the north of Scotland the government putting themselves first imagine that not sure who you'd be governing though the one for Central Scotland was originally in Barton Quarry in Edinburgh a couple of hundred yards from where I run every Sunday morning and right next to the zoo almost sounds like they were building an arc there I have been to the bunker before on my wedding anniversary it's not as bad as it sounds I was driving past on my way to a very Porsche lunch in Saint Andrews and I saw the sign and kind of veered off course it gives you a bit of an idea what the long-suffering Mrs Parker has to put up with the smells the thing that stays with you my poor wife refuses to come back here and to be honest it kind of gives me the fear as well it's kind of institutional like every outdated Hospital in public building you've ever been to but underground a lot of the materials in the pictures are from the 80s what's kind of scary is I can remember when police uniforms looked like that I mean this kind of stuff is what you would expect from a nuclear bunker it's the kind of innocuous the everyday stuff that really scares me this was still going on when I was a teenager and these feelings the mixture of the familiar and completely surreal are the things I can't show you on video well worth a visit just experience it for yourself but what really scares me is the thought of being one of the people who worked down there part of the royal Air Force or the Royal observer's Corps in the event of something actually happening yeah you'd be okay You'd Survive but surely you'd believe in your family behind iaf answer closed down in 1993. the threat of the Cold War had receded and nuclear bunkers were Surplus to requirements or where they insert your own conspiracy theory here [Music] oh

Channel: Scotland Unplugged

Views: 6,781

Keywords: Secret Bunker, Scotland, Scottish History, Cold War, Nuclear Bunker, Scotland Unplugged, Military History, Fife, History, Shaun, Scotland history tours, Broonfords, Thoughty2, scottish history, history, secret history, hidden, secret, weird history, the history guy, myths, legends, things to do in Scotland, Scottish travel, Hoof GP’s Brother, Hoof GP, Funny History, Humour, Scottish landmarks, horrible histories, Andy the Highlander, Scotland Uncovered, beautiful, Scottish scenery

Id: sVBCmatVfvg

Length: 7min 17sec (437 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 07 2023