A Cold War nuclear bunker has been rediscovered after lying forgotten in the grounds of a castle for 57 years.
The space was decommisioned and sealed in 1968 and was assumed lost until an archaeological dig by English Heritage successfully pinpointed its location.
It would have been staffed by volunteers from the Royal Observer Corps, ROC, in the event of a nuclear war.
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The bunker measures just 15ft 6in long and 7ft 6in wide and is just high enough to stand up in.
In total, about 1,500 such underground observation posts were built across Britain.
The bunkers would each have protected three ROC volunteers who would have helped map where Soviet nuclear bombs had exploded, with rations for the occupants expected to last about two weeks.
The exact location of the ROC post at Scarborough Castle in North Yorkshire had been a mystery since its closure, with websites pointing to it being buried somewhere between the castle and the North Sea, as reported by What’s The Jam.
Kevin Booth, of English Heritage, said: “Wherever you lived in Britain you were probably no more than a few miles from an ROC post.
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“Yet few people knew they existed.
“It seems strange to have a Cold War bunker built inside Scarborough Castle, but in many ways, it is a perfect location.
“This headland has been an observation post for thousands of years, from a Bronze Age settlement to a Roman signal station, medieval castle, WWI gun battery and, here, a 1960s concrete bunker watching for Armageddon.
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“We wanted to pinpoint it and see if we could reopen it and see what was inside.
“Old mapping gives a sense of where it might be, but it really comes down to survey, looking under the ground with radar to find the big black blob that is a concrete structure.”
Inside, the bunker would have been a bomb indicator that would measure pressure waves in the event of explosions.
A pinhole camera would have been fitted on the top of the bunker which would have recorded the blasts.
The ROC post in Scarborough only operated for a few years, being capped with concrete in 1968 as the nuclear threat at the time slowly reduced.
A camera has revealed it has about six-feet of water in it.
Mr Booth hoped it could eventually be emptied and, when safe, people could take a step into the post for the first time in decades.
“We’re getting inklings of some interesting survival down there,” he said.
“The wooden door that I’m looking down this shaft at, it’s solid, you can tap on it despite it being flooded for 60 years.
“We’re finding a physical connection with the memories of the ROC, who tell me about these spaces, who tell me that they’re cold, who tell me they used to get fish and chips in instead of eating the rations.”
“For English Heritage, it’s not only completing the story of Scarborough Castle, we’re completing the story of the Cold War and the way Britain was trying to deal with that threat.”
Helen Featherstone of The National Lottery Heritage Fund, added: “It’s really exciting that this lost bunker has been uncovered by the team working on this project marking 100 years of the Royal Observer Corps.
“This find builds on our understanding of their story and shines a spotlight on their important work protecting the UK.
“The project has been made possible thanks to money raised by National Lottery players, and I’m sure that they will be thrilled to know that they have played a role in this discovery.”
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