Nuclear bunker on sale in Nottinghamshire

A Cold War-era bunker, complete with instructions for what to do during a nuclear attack, is up for auction.

The underground bunker was built in the Nottinghamshire countryside, in 1961, at the height of tensions between the West and the Soviet Union.

The small room, four metres below the ground, has been left more or less as it was when it was shut down in 1991, explained auctioneer Richard Gadd.

It could have housed up to four staff.

"It would have been quite uncomfortable but they still managed to fit them in somehow.

"It wasn't really built for comfort, it was built for a purpose."

And that purpose was to monitor the effects of what was believed to be an impending nuclear attack.

It was built by the Royal Observers Corps, in Burton Joyce, in the year the construction of the Berlin Wall began and the Bay of Pigs invasion took place.

The regiment built more than 1,500 monitoring posts across the country between 1956 and 1965.

Scattered around the bunker are instructions for staff about what to do prior to and during a fallout, as well as charts monitoring wind speed, wall-mounted communications systems and an asbestos fire blanket.

Nick Catford, editor of the magazine for the Subterranea Brittanica society, for people interested in underground spaces, said the bunker's occupants were there to monitor the effects of a nuclear detonation.

"They would work out which direction the fallout was heading and therefore which part of the country, which airfields, would remain operational," he said.

Mr Catford said it was rare to find one so well preserved.

"The last of them was stood down in 1991. Years have passed by and people have broken into them," he said.

"A bunker in a field away from anyone, it just attracts the vandal. To find one that's still got some of its kit, that is a rarity these days."

He said there have been unusual uses for the facilities across the country, including a bird watching station and a wine cellar.

Savills auctioneers have set a guide price of £75,000 for the bunker and 6.5 acres of surrounding land.

Mr Gadd said it could also appeal to war enthusiasts.

"You are buying a piece of history and a piece of land as well," he said.

"There is potential to recreate what would have been here back in 1961."