Dad turns 1950s nuclear bunker into a house

SWNS

A dad has faithfully restored a nuclear bunker that was once used to monitor for radioactive explosions across Britain.  Jon Graves, 37, reinstated the 15ft-deep ex-Royal Observer Corps pit so he could preserve the piece of British Cold War history.  The fallout shelter - which was manned by observers from 1964 to 1991 - was capped off with concrete when he bought it three years ago.  But after the dad-of-three finally broke into it, he discovered that the underground military-grade hide-out had remained remarkably intact.

Transcript

00:00I'm John and this is my nuclear bunker. So we bought this three years ago for us

00:06and the kids really to enjoy and relax in. We renovated it two years ago and

00:11then we've had two successive summers of coming down and staying in it, sleeping

00:15in it, having fun. It's basically like a campsite but underground so it's been a

00:18really good time. So the bunker is one of about 1,500 to 1,600 in the UK that were

00:24built in the Cold War to monitor nuclear explosions and radiation and light in

00:29case something happened. Thankfully it didn't and so they were never really put

00:33to full use. This one is known as Upton bunker so this then linked directly into

00:38the York HQ which is now a museum. So if you ever go you'll be able to see it

00:42says Upton in the command centre and that's this one which is where all the

00:46electronics links back to. We decided to sell it because we are potentially moving

00:51out of the country and we just won't use it anymore so it's really

00:55important for us that another family can take it on and get as much enjoyment out

00:59of it as me and the kids have had.

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