Hope Cove nuclear bunker sold for £433,000

The bunker contains 56 rooms hosted across two storeys

An underground nuclear bunker in Devon has been sold at auction for £433,000.

The bunker was originally built in 1941 as a World War Two radar station but was redeveloped in 1952.

The Cold War shelter, which went under the hammer on Wednesday, has 56 rooms over two floors with walls one-metre thick.

The Grade II listed building in a farmer's field at Hope Cove on the south coast was one of only five built to its two-storey semi-sunken design.

The Historic England listing information for the site says the bunker was "designed to resist the effects of a five kiloton nuclear explosion" and as such there are no windows and the only openings in the structure are at each end of the ground floor with blast doors and lobbies.

Inside the bunker the rooms boast original equipment stretching back more than 60 years

The site was bought by two farmers after being decommissioned in the 1990s

It was initially part of the government's Rotor programme to modernise the United Kingdom's radar defences before being taken over by the Home Office in the late 1950s and turned into a Regional Seat of Government (RSG), codenamed Gull Perch.

RSGs would have sheltered government ministers and staff from government departments during what is termed a "nuclear exchange".

The Hope Cove bunker had space for 150 people and was decommissioned in the 1990s when it was bought by two farmers, Trevor Lethbridge and Derek Brooking.

The bunker sits in a farmer's field at Malborough in South Devon

Previous records released by the Russian authorities revealed that one of two Soviet nuclear missiles targeted on Devon was aimed at the bunker.

The guide price for the bunker was £400,000 during the online auction by Clive Emson auctioneers.