Over the last few months we’ve been making the most of our English Heritage membership by visiting some amazing places in our area and further afield. We’ve learned a lot about the history of our country but even better than that, we’ve had a lot of fun together!
Today I thought we’d try something a bit different by visiting English Heritage’s most modern property – York’s Cold War Bunker. In case you’re wondering what you’ll find if you visit York Cold War Bunker yourself, here’s what the website has to say about it….
The York Cold War Bunker uncovers the secret history of Britain’s Cold War. Enter the blast-proof doors and investigate the more unusual side of York’s heritage. In active service from the 1960s–1990s the bunker was designed as a nerve-centre to monitor fallout in the event of a nuclear attack.
We could tell from the drive up to the site that it wasn’t like the sites we were used to visiting! For starters it was in the middle of a housing estate and secondly there wasn’t a ruin or even a blade of grass in sight!
Entry to the bunker is by guided tour only and the tour guide we had was brilliant – very knowledgeable and really engaging when he was telling us about the bunker’s history.
In a nutshell, the bunker was built to withstand a nuclear blast and should a nuclear bomb ever be dropped then a group of 60 volunteers would enter the bunker for a 30 day period to monitor the fallout of the blast. It was fascinating to see the different ways that the volunteers would monitor the fallout from the blast and how they lived in the completely self contained bunker for 30 days.
The bunker was as it was at the time it was de-commissioned in 1991 and was definitely more of an educational experience than a fun afternoon. Miss Frugal was definitely bored before we were even half way through the tour but Master Frugal loved it all.
I’m not sure that I’d recommend this as a fun trip – it’s interesting and a real eye opener but we’re more of a having fun outside kind of family lately and it’s the first place we’ve been that we don’t want to go back to.
Worth a look if you’re in the area though (it’s only five minutes from the York Designer Outlet).
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