Inside the Cold War nuclear bunker at a major Huntingdonshire housing development
Developers now plan for the nuclear bunker to form part of the heritage area of the development
Last updated 17th Jun 2024
A Cold War nuclear bunker is due to form part of a major housing development in Cambridgeshire.
Developers are currently turning a former airfield in Alconbury into a new development with around 6,500 new homes, as well as schools, shops, parks and spaces for businesses.
While many of the old airfield hangars will be demolished and built on again – once they have been photographed and recorded – some of the historic airfield buildings are due to remain.
One of these buildings is a nuclear bunker built during the Cold War to provide a safe place for intelligence gathered by spy planes to be processed.
The bunker, also called ‘magic mountain’, is now a Grade II* listed building and is now the responsibility of the master developers, Urban and Civic.
The nuclear bunker was designed to withstand a blast or chemical attack and would have been able to operate on its own for a short period of time in the event of an attack.
It was not designed to be a place of sanctuary for people to go to if a bomb was to fall, but was a place of work to process intelligence data collected by the TR1 reconnaissance aircraft.
The bunker was only in operational use for a short period of time as work on it was completed in 1989, the same year the Berlin Wall came down, which marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union.
The developers now plan for the nuclear bunker to form part of the heritage area of the development, where a number of hangars will also be kept to highlight the history of the airfield.
The developers said they have not made a final decision on what role the bunker will play in the heritage area, and explained that they are focusing at the moment on ensuring it is in good working order and completing maintenance, while considering how best it can be used in the future.