A fascinating legacy from frightening times
It’s a comforting thought that, should Yorkshire have been vaporised by nuclear war, a selected coterie of the chosen few would have stayed safe and well underneath what was once Acomb.
Today, the York Cold War Bunker is a curiosity, and perhaps the city’s most bizarre attraction. But its creation in 1961 was a deadly serious affair. At the height of the tensions between the Soviet bloc and the Western world, British leaders faced the grim task of planning for a post-nuclear-holocaust world.
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Address Monument Close, York YO24 4HT, +44 (0)1904 646940, english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/york-cold-war-bunker/, yorkbunker@english-heritage.org.uk | Public Transport By car: take Holgate Road to Acomb Road (B1224) west to Monument Close; limited on-site parking. Buses: First York Service 1, Arriva 412, and Eddie Brown Service 142 and 413 | Hours Winter, Sat & Sun 10am–4pm; summer, hours TBA, check website| Tip Another attraction that will interest military history buffs is the Yorkshire Air Museum, found at Elvington to the south-east of York.
How would they manage the aftermath of the bomb dropping? The answer was by going underground. Should the worst have happened, York’s bunker would have become home to up to 60 members of the Royal Observer Corps, the civil defence organisation of the time.
Although clearly better than the alternative, life in the bunker would have been no bed of roses. The work of its volunteers would have included gathering details of the bombs that had fallen on the UK, tracking the radioactive fallout, and warning survivors of its approach.
Its existence was officially classified, but the bunker was an open secret. The authorities felt it would do no harm to let the Soviet leaders know that Britain was prepared to withstand the worst they could throw at its citizens.
Around the country, 30 bunkers were constructed, but only the one in York has been preserved in its operational condition. Walk through its blast-proof doors and you are confronted with the chilling realities of the Cold War: air filtration equipment to allow everyone inside to breathe safely; a leaflet explaining how to survive a nuclear blast (summary: with great difficulty); very uncomfortable-looking utilitarian beds in the dormitories; radio equipment for communicating with what was left of the outside world; and, in a reminder that the bunker only closed in 1991, a set of computers from the 1980s.
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