Bunker Hill

At the top of Cockett Lane and just before the junction with Kirklington Road, there is a bus stop. The bus stop is at least half a mile from the nearest house. From the bus stop, no settlements are visible. I have never seen anyone at the bus stop, nor anyone get on or off a bus there, and we have been passing it regularly since we moved to the village more than 30 years ago.

There is a lay-by near the bus stop, with a few fence posts and a small concrete block at the edge of a field. Previously, there was also a small brick building that looked like a garden shed and one or two metal pipes, all of which disappeared many years ago.

Someone once told me that this was the site of a Cold War nuclear bunker. I imagined, perhaps a little fancifully, that this meant that in the event of a nuclear war, our leaders would hastily turn their backs on pressing matters of the day at County Hall and head for the bunker at the top of the hill. Presumably they would be coming by bus. The Sherwood Arrow Bus service from the city is every two hours, so they could have been waiting nervously for some time, if they thought a nuclear strike was imminent.

Would they have bothered with a return ticket? Would they have asked the driver to “Make it snappy,” whilst maintaining an air of nonchalance, so that they did not arouse the suspicions of their fellow passengers? Would they have a change of clothes with them or were such things taken into account in the nuclear bunker’s inventory?

When the shed was knocked down, the green metal pipe-work was removed from the location and the ground immediately behind the gate post was cleared of any remaining evidence of the formerly disturbed surface. Whatever had been going on there had obviously been abandoned. I had no idea if what was underground was removed, filled in or just covered up and ploughed over. Perhaps there are multiple packs of tinned baked beans and crates of bottled water still down there, past their use-by dates and slowly rotting underground.

It caught my eye in passing once again this week, so I decided to take a closer look. I climbed the hill on my bike to have a nose around. I found that the sole remaining concrete block, also painted in Nottinghamshire County Council green, actually has a small brass plaque on the top, which has already become quite weathered.

IN THIS FIELD STOOD THE

ROYAL OBSERVER CORPS POST OF

B GROUP [COVENTRY] 22 POST FARNSFIELD

RE-SITED HERE IN 1943, FOR REPORTING AIRCRAFT

AND AS A “GRANITE POST” TO AID FRIENDLY A/C

BUILT UNDERGROUND SEPT 1961 FOR NUCLEAR REPORTING ROLE

CORPS STOOD DOWN 30-9-91 POST DEMOLISHED 1992

14 LOYAL VOLUNTEERS MANNED THE POST

LED BY C/OBS P.K.J. ROBINSON B.E.M.

Back home on the computer, as is so often the case these days, reality is laid bare by the internet within minutes. 

 www.subbrit.org.uk/category/nuclear-monitoring-posts was a useful starting point.

No trains this time, but heritage at every turn.