The secret history

Who’s looking out for Cold War buildings, wonders Amy Rowe. It seems it’s the National Trust, English Heritage and a group of enthusiasts called Sub Brit…  

 From Legion Winter issue  2009

George Orwell is the person usually credited with the description of the long stand off between the USSR and the Western world as the ‘Cold War’. In 1945, while imagining a world living under the threat of a nuclear bomb, the novelist wrote an
essay about a ‘peace that is no peace’. He called it a ‘permanent cold war’.

Put crudely, the end of World War II left the world in considerable political and economic turmoil, resulting in huge tension, primarily between the United States
and the former Soviet Union.
But this year’s Remembrance period marks the 20th anniversary of the end of the Cold War. It was
on 9 November, 1989, that the Berlin Wall started to crumble. Since 1961 it had divided not only a city, but
an entire hemisphere, existing as a symbol of the icy East/West relationship.

Talk about the Cold War now, and the conversation
will invariably turn to the wall. The little that is left of
the structure serves as a powerful physical reminder of
the tension of the time, when the end of the world often seemed to be only minutes away.

But what of the other reminders of the era? They’re subtle, somewhat sadder, and can be found much closer to home. Britain’s Cold War heritage is made up of weapons-testing sites, radar posts, and shelters. Crumbling structures are dotted all over the UK’s countryside. Most are easily missed and can look like large storage boxes
– but they can go deep underground. They’re often destitute, shut down, or in the hands of private owners. There are so many sites that the Ministry of Defence cannot, or will not, give an estimate of their number.

Of the sites that the public do know about, access is limited, and discouraged for ‘safety reasons’. Most of these places remain inconspicuous. However, Orford Ness (pictured), which is owned by the National Trust on account of its rare fauna, has held locals’ fascination for years. And it’s easy to see why.

Mermen, winged crocodiles and burning piles of bodies on the beaches are just some of the many legends that surround the ‘Ness’. There have been reports of strange electrical equipment malfunctions on the island; batteries that quickly drain; computer monitors that flicker before failing and cameras that refuse to work.

It is not well signposted. Even now – decades after
the end of the Cold War – you can get the feeling no
one really wants you to go there. Flat marshlands surround the winding, empty roads that lead down to the Suffolk coastline. Driving, you’ll notice the number of barbed-wire fences and signs along the roads that warn: ‘Private property’ and ‘Keep out’.
Once you reach Orford – a small, quiet village on the
edge of Suffolk – you need to take a boat out to the Ness,
a spur of land that tides often turn into an island. It can be seen quite clearly from the quay. In the distance it looms, the edges sloping gently into the horizon. It would be almost flat if it were not for the three grey buildings – ‘pagodas’ – that jut upward into the sky. These were built
to withstand nuclear explosions, and allow gasses and other harmful substances to vent. It is maintained the structures were never used to house nuclear bombs. But, like all the information surrounding the Ness, knowledge is sparse and rumours are rife. 

You can’t go inside the pagodas any more, but photographs show them to be desolate, foreboding and fascinating. Nature is slowly taking over, but they look far from natural. The area has the feel of a pencil sketch that has been partially rubbed out – you can see the faint outlines, but you’ll never know the whole story.

The National Trust nature reserve (open April to October) receives around 7,000 visitors a year, but most of those are birdwatchers or people who want to walk on what is the largest vegetated shingle spit in Europe.

“It’s not somewhere the general public would choose to holiday,” says Claire Graves, of the National Trust. “We took on the island with the understanding that some parts of it haven’t been checked yet, and could still be dangerous.

There are around 15km of trails for people to walk along, although you’re not allowed to stray from them.”

It was only in 1996, when the military finally handed
the site over, that you could even get near the pagodas.
And until about a decade ago, you couldn’t go into most post-1945 sites, says Andrew Smith, a Cold War enthusiast, who is part of a wider network of history buffs who make up the Subterranea Britannica group.

The group – affectionately shortened to ‘Sub Brit’ by those in the know – has been going for years. And all because a small number of people wanted to know what happened to the UK’s many underground sites that were built in secret more than half a century ago.

“We don’t break into places,” Andrew says. “We’re a trusted organisation. We put pressure on the MoD by sending emails and lots of letters. In some cases we’ve had to use the Freedom of Information Act to get information. It involves a lot of trawling through archives.”
It is frequently difficult to get access to Cold War sites, and near impossible if you are a ‘Joe Bloggs’ member of the public. “You can’t just go walking into these places. A lot of them are privately owned now, or are closed because they’re too dangerous for the public. People don’t want to open them up.”Alternatively, some places are still active, and entrance is forbidden to the public.

Andrew has been involved with Sub Brit for the past decade. “I was always poking my nose into things I shouldn’t,” he says. “I’ve not exactly been discouraged from going somewhere that has been decommissioned, but people can certainly be cagey.” Take RAF Strike Command, in High Wycombe, for example. It is still classified by the Government, but can be seen on internet applications such as Google Earth. “That’s the Holy Grail for most people,” Andrew says. “But not for me. I want to visit the underground tunnel system beneath Whitehall. Only one member of the public I know of has been there, and he was a journalist.”

So what does Andrew look for in an unexplored site? “When I go into somewhere new it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I’m thinking, ‘Is anything still going to be intact?’ ‘Will there be original artefacts?’

When Legion asks him whether it makes him sad to think of all the places that are being left to deteriorate he pauses in his tracks: “Yes,” he says. “But it’s not Sub Brit’s aim to preserve them. We just want to be able to document them – for history’s sake.”