Today I travelled up to Cheshire on the train to visit Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker in Nantwich
After a 4 and a bit journey from hell, up from Brighton, across London and up to Cheshire I arrived at Hack Green. Tip: The bunker is 3.5miles away from Nantwich Station. If you are planning on going and don’t drive, get a cab! The walk is pleasant enough but it’s goes through a country road and lane which can be a bit hairy at times!
In 1941 Hack Green, a site previously used as a bombing decoy site for the main railway centre at Crewe was chosen to become RAF Hack Green, to protect the land between Birmingham and Liverpool from hostile attack. Thus began the service of Hack Green and the airmen and women of Cheshire in the defence of the nation.
Hack Green was one of 21 fixed radar stations in the country and one of only 12 fully equipped with searchlights and fighter aircraft control. In one of the cabinets in the museum you can see some of the original communications equipment used by Searchlight Command.
1958 brought yet another change in Hack Green’s role when it became part of The United Kingdom Air Traffic Control System, one of 4 joint civil/military Air Traffic Control Units.
It was in this role providing a safe radar assisted crossing service for both military and civil aircraft, that Hack Green was to see its final service as an RAF station. The station was closed in 1966, it’s role having been transferred to RAF Lindholme in south Yorkshire.
In 1976 the abandoned site at Hack Green was purchased from the MOD by the Home Office Emergency Planning Division to be converted into a protected seat of government for Home Defence Region 10:2. It was cloaked in considerable secrecy over a five year period. At a cost reputed to be some £32 million, the original Rotor radar bunker was converted into a vast underground complex containing its own generating plant, air conditioning and life support, nuclear fallout filter rooms, communications, emergency water supply and all the support services that would be required to enable the 135 civil servants and military personnel to survive a sustained nuclear attack.
The HQ became operational in 1984, region 10s other bunker at Southport, Lancashire was unsatisfactory and prone to flooding so its duties were transferred to Hack Green, which became responsible for a huge area from Cheshire in the south to Cumbria in the north. The HQ would have been headed by a Regional Commissioner who would have been an appointed civil servant or minister. Under the Emergency Powers Act he would govern his defence region, and neighbouring regions if other RGHQ’s had been destroyed. He would attempt to marshall the remaining resources to put the region back on its feet and prepare for the re-establishment of national government. He was assisted by a network of County War Headquarters and the United Kingdom Warning & Monitoring Organisation.
Text taken from http://www.hackgreen.co.uk/ to ensure accuracy.
Here’s a selection of photographs from the site;
Being legally bound by the Official Secrets Act, I can’t tell you anything else apart from;
The staff are really friendly,
The NAAFI is great,
It’s well worth a visit and,
It’s very very real!
