Nuclear war bunker in Moray opened to public for first time

Former Royal Observer Corps volunteers back at Post 32 for the open day

A bunker constructed 20ft (6m) underground in the Cabrach hills of Moray has been opened to the public for the first time.

Post 32, a caravan-sized facility, was part of a network of hundreds of sites staffed by volunteers of the Royal Observer Corps during the Cold War.

It was built in the 1960s to monitor fallout from any future nuclear weapons attack.

The bunker, along with the other sites, were closed in the early 1990s.

The site of the bunker in the Cabrach hills

Community group the Cabrach Trust has opened Post 32 to the public from Saturday.

The trust's Andy Fairgrieve, from Dufftown, said the bunker's state today is far different from how it looked when it was in operation.

He said it was "stripped out" following its closure, with some of its contents now on display at Alford Heritage Museum.

Mr Fairgrieve said: "When the bunker was in use there were bunk beds, instruments on the wall, aircraft and cloud identification charts and tins of food and tins of water."

The entrance down into the bunker

Inside the caravan-sized monitoring post

George Anthony was one of the volunteers who ran the post and was among the last officers of the Royal Observer Corps (ROC), which was stood down in 1995.

The 59-year-old group officer said two hours of training was done weekly at Post 32.

The training included plotting the movement of mushroom clouds from exploded nuclear weapons and detecting for radiation.

The Royal Observer Corps was made up of volunteers

The ROC trained for duties in the event of a nuclear attack

Asked if he believed a nuclear strike was ever imminent, Mr Anthony said: "Definitely. From the 1950s onwards, we were expecting a nuclear attack at any given time.

"That is something people forget today."

Previously only visited by ROC volunteers, the bunker has opened to the public for the first time