Cold War Monitoring Bunker

Last year I was working in a care home where a culture of abuse was rather prevalent and steadily escalating, and I was ostracised for daring to raise concerns with the higher-ups, who it turns out were in on it. One of the few colleagues that I actually liked, who was pretty supportive, decided to help me out on a particularly glum shift. Her plan was for us to abscond in the company vehicle, under the pretense of running an errand. Instead of taking the company car for work-related purposes, we instead swung by mine for my camera and then set off for the nearest urbex snack. Nothing too extravagant. A ROC bunker would do.

Naughty? Absolutely. But why feel guilty for screwing over a company whose respect for human life was so severely impaired? 

The best part is we didn't clock out. I totally got paid for this. 

On with the adventure!

 

What we've got here is a Cold War ROC bunker. The Cold War, of course, doesn't refer to literal warfare but rather to the period of tension between the Russians and the Americans. Both sides had nuclear weapons, which meant any actual war would be potentially world-ending. As a result, people were a bit squirrely.

 

The Royal Observer Corps, or ROC, had been established in the 1920s to monitor for suspected enemy aircraft and to calculate their trajectory from hilltop observation posts called Orlits. But as of the 1960s, the ROC turned their attention to monitoring for nuclear weapons, and their facilities moved underground.

 

 

1,563 ROC posts were built in total, and even though many have been demolished, the abandoned ones are still numerous enough that I can confidently say that if you live in the UK, you probably have one of these only a short drive away. 

Numerous diagrams exist that show what these bunkers would have looked like.

 

(Picture not mine, obviously)

 

So as you can see, there's an access hatch to a tiny room, where a small crew would have used various bits of equipment to monitor for nuclear activity, including the level of radiation and mega-tonnage. They'd communicate their findings across a vast network, and in theory should there be a nuclear attack, the powers-that-be could initiate some sort of response. 

As you can see, there were often bunk beds down in these bunkers too. If there was a nuclear strike, the crew would be forced to stay here until it was safe to venture to the surface.

 

 

This ROC post was built in 1960 on the site of a previous aircraft monitoring post that is still extant only a few feet away. This was probably last used in the second world war. The wooden posts in the middle of the brick square would have mounted a circular chart that would have calculated the trajectory of aircraft flying overhead. Luckily, there are images online that show such contraptions being used.

 

(Picture not mine, obviously)

I guess watching for the luftwaffe was pretty fun. Look how happy these guys are! It's the highlight of their day! That's not the exact same orlit, but it follows the same basic principles. I also don't think that picture shows the site being used in the war either. In all likelihood this photo was taken in a post-war demonstration.

But enough about orlits. They sound like a breath mint. 

Onto the ROC bunker!

 

Much to my delight, the hatch was open. 

 

Despite their uniformity, each ROC post has been made unique by its post-abandonment history. Some are trashed, some have been set on fire, some are flooded, many are sealed shut forever, and some have even been modified by their current landowners. Very few of them are pristine. But that's part of their charm now, really. It's an urbex lucky dip.

More than half of the ROC bunkers were decommissioned in 1968, with the rest closing in 1991. This one closed in 1991. Not surprisingly the 1991 closures tend to be in better condition than the 1968 closures, what with having less decades of yob exposure.

 

 

At the bottom of the ladder is a pump, used to remove rain water from the bunker to stop it from flooding. I've heard it said that the wooden handled pumps are quite rare but I've found quite a few over the years.

 

 

The main bunker itself is tiny. In fact it's smaller than the average bedroom, measuring at about fifteen by eight feet, aproximately. Against the back wall would have been bunk beds, and some of these bunkers even had a third bed lying down the length of the room. Against the other wall is always a desk where those stationed here would have worked. 

 

 

To say that conditions are cramped is an understatement. I want you to think of your most annoying work colleague and imagine that you're stationed here when a nuclear blast goes off, and you're forced to stay down here with them for an undetermined number of weeks. I think I would actually prefer to go to the surface and bask in the nuclear fallout. 

The map is a nice original feature, but what's really interesting are the red pins, because at first I thought they were mapping out the other ROC bunkers across North Wales. But comparing that to my own urbex map, including some that I've blogged about before, it's actually fairly random. Some of the pins are quite accurate but others are way off, and they aren't nearly numerous enough. Perhaps they did show other ROC bunkers but someone moved them around. Perhaps they represent something else entirely. I don't know.

 

 

These wooden crates are fairly common in ROC bunkers. More elusive are the warning sirens that they used to contain. It was basically just a wind-up air raid siren that could be set up to alert the public in the event of an attack.

 

 

While the siren itself is long gone, it's still cool to see the box stamped "Jan 1963." This one was manufactured by Service Electrical Company, which means it would have been a model called the Secomak, and it would have looked something like this:

 

(Picture not mine, obviously)

 

 

The wall has the remains of the old telecom equipment, but anything of any real value has been removed. 

 

 

Some vintage motor oil. 

 

 

The old fire blanket container. Presumably the hooks on the wall would have held keys and things. 

 

 

Here's the old First Aid instruction notice. I love that the second half of the page talks about stuff like tourniquets and fractures, but has the headline "First Aid Hints," like stopping your colleague from bleeding to death is some kind of fun puzzle game. 

Picture your most annoying work colleague again, and suddenly it all makes sense. It IS a fun puzzle game.

 

At the back of the ROC  bunker is an air vent which highlights the futility of nuclear civil defence. In the event of a nuclear strike these bunkers actually wouldn't have provided much protection at all. The vents would have allowed the irradiated air in, and the telegraph poles required to communicate would have been flattened. The ROC folks were, by all accounts, very brave and dedicated people, but if the world was going to end in a nuclear apocalypse, it was going to take them with it. The same goes for all the families who had recieved pamphlets telling them to prop up a wooden door horizontally against a wall and cram under it with their kids. We were fucked. 

But the powers-that-be knew that they should at least be seen to be doing something to keep the people safe, even if they didn't know what to do exactly.

 

The inadequacy of a ROC bunker to provide nuclear protection needs highlighting in particular in urbex groups on Facebook that I found myself joining at the expense of my faith in humanity. Ever since the whole Ukraine thing kicked off, any time someone posts a ROC bunker, at least three barely-literates will attempt to spell in the comments "We'll be needing these bunkers soon." It's so common, it's made it onto Urbex Comment Section Bingo, along with "Where is this" and "Check your DMs."

But no, anyone who thinks that a bunker built in 1963 and neglected for several decades will provide adequate protection against a nuclear strike in 2022 is the exact kind of person we shouldn't be letting take up space in a finite-resourced post-apocalyptic survival scenario, although keeping them around to cook and eat is tempting.

 

There's one other room in the bunker, and that's the toilet. The toilet is basically just a bucket with a seat in a cupboard. Now, if you think living down here with your most annoying work colleague would be hard, try lugging a bucket of their poop up a ladder. 

 

That's all I've got on this particular ROC bunker, but I promise it definitely won't be the last time I visit one of these. 

To conclude, a ROC bunker is perfect for urbex newbies and fans of the cold war era. There's usually a spider or two lurking in the access shaft, so maybe watch out for those if you're squeamish. It's also not uncommon to find dead animals down here that have fallen down the access hatch and been unable to escape, so that's possibly a deal breaker for some.

If you're traveling far on an urbex trip, definitely don't go out of your way for a ROC bunker. They're so small, and their accessiblity and condition are always uncertain, so they're best being added to an adventure rather than being the focal point. If you happen to be near one, they make for a nice detour.

My next couple of blogs are on the international blog. One is a hotel that was very popular with the urbex herd, and the other is a mansion that I just love, but has also fallen victim to the urbex herd in the time since I've been there. Both have really dark histories, so I'm very much looking forward to diving into that. In the meantime, follow me on social media. I'm on Instagram, and I'm on Vero. For some reason, even though Vero is a slow burn and I still have less than a hundred followers, my content reach is equal to that of Instagram, where I have over five thousand. What are you doing, Instagram? If that was my algorithm I'd be so embarassed. I'm also on Facebook, Reddit and Twitter for some reason. 

Thanks for reading!

Storm Drains

At some point last summer my mental health kinda dropped like a bomb, and I ended up shutting down for a bit. It wasn't just your regular low mood. It was a total crash, and I retreated inside myself for a while, surfacing occasionally just to be reminded by well-meaning but useless people that I should try yoga or something, before retreating again. Eventually I'd drag myself out of it because my bounce-back game is totally awesome, but in the meantime I was a little lost. My usual coping mechanism is urbex, and when I'm home, rooftopping. But even rooftopping leaves a bitter taste now, because some people have gone up there and vandalised, and consequently a lot of the old spots aren't accessible anymore, and the ones that are just make me angry. Just imagine there's one thing that can calm you down after a bad day, and when you go to do it, you find someone has taken a big shit on it.

 

Of course, I'm one for using depression as a motivation to push the limits of my comfort zone. How'd you think this crazy hobby got started to begin with? I wasn't just sat in perfect bliss, sipping my tea with my loved ones, saying "I'm going to needlessly put my life in danger today." No, the lack of fear spawns from an apathy of consequence, and to reach that level, your mind has to crash and burn. And then by not caring, you live more, and rediscover an appreciation for life. At least that's how it worked for me. But this time without the rooftops to lift my spirits, I decided instead to head under my town, to check out the labyrinth of drains that runs underneath Shrewsbury. 

 

There are a couple things I need to get out of the way. Firstly, these aren't sewers. The two photos above are taken from the same spot, the latter pointing at the river, and the wonderful obstacle that dared try to stop me getting here, and the other pointing away from the river up the tunnel. Nobody is flushing their shit into the river. These aren't sewers. These are drains. They don't transport waste, they transport rain water. The rain flows into the drain, and it gets regurgitated out into nature via a tunnel. Sometimes these culverts are actual rivers that were just doing their thing for centuries when humans came along and said "I want to build a city here. Let's put the river underground." In which case, it's possible to follow the tunnel from one portion of the river and emerge from the tunnel further upstream. So no, these aren't sewers. I wouldn't be this excited about sewers.

 

My second point, and I can't stress this enough, is that this is fucking dangerous. Forget rooftops. Forget mines. Drains are possibly the most dangerous form of urbex. There's no phone signal. There's no light source. There's barely any sense of direction. And there actually are examples of urban explorers dying when it starts to rain and they get flushed out. If there's rain, stay out of the drain. 

But in spite of these risks, let me repeat myself- this isn't a sewer. I won't be inhaling sewage, so among the risks involved, we can probably rule out the likes of campylobacter, giardiasis, or methaemoglobinaemia, which is terrific. I don't want anything entering my body unless I can pronounce it.

It's a good thing I can pronounce penis.

But having said that, if you're ever in a drain and you smell something off, or you start to feel dizzy, then get the hell out of there. 

On a positive note, drains are pleasantly cold in a heat wave, and pleasantly warm in the winter, and combined with the relaxing sound of running water, they can make for a nice little stroll as well as a rare glimpse at a towns infrastructure.

 

 

There's graffiti down here, with arrows pointing towards the exit. It sure is intriguing to think that people have explored these tunnels before. But who were they? How long ago was this?

 

 

One of the frequent features of a drain tunnel are the ladders up to the surface. This gives us a good idea of just how deep we are, but while I did occasionally hear traffic and footsteps overhead, I had a very minimal idea of what I was under. 

Interestingly, if you look closely you'll see an older set of steps built into the wall behind the ladder, so these have been modified at some point.

 

This graffiti is stupid. You know why? Because I can just follow the flow of the water to find the way out.

 

There's a cute slope here, which ordinarily wouldn't pose too much of a challenge. But with the water flowing down it and the floor being slippery, it did take a little effort to traverse.

 

With drains, it's probably important to tell someone where you're going and what time you expect to have phone signal again. Of course, while I'm a big believer that urbex should be stealthy, drain exploring is one area where the size of your group won't impact your chances of being caught.

Naturally, I prefer to explore solo, or in a duo, and the whole problem I mentioned with the rooftopping is a brilliant example of why. An urbex group is only as intelligent as its stupidest member. It only takes one imbecile to do something silly and the adventure is ruined for everyone.

It’s important to seek out people with positive ethics when doing urbex. Surprisingly you may find that the most well-behaved people are the ones to watch out for. I’ve found that those who mindlessly obey the rules because the rules are there don’t have such a firm grasp on morality as someone who doesn’t use the law as a substitute for their own moral compass. These are the people who have actually considered whether their actions are harmful, and developed a conscience on their own. In my experience, some people are only well-behaved out of fear of legal repercussion, and no matter how angelic they seem in the “normal” world, they will be the first ones urinating on the walls and smashing windows as soon as they’re in a place away from the CCTV. I guess it’s a freedom overdose.

 

But I digress. None of that really matters here.

 

The larger main tunnel is frequently joined by smaller drains.

 

 

So in addition to the current that makes it dangerous are all the bits of debris that have also ended up down here. If there was a sudden flow of water, and one was taken off their feet, any rocks caught in the flow are also a pretty serious hazard. 

 

 

So were it to rain, and the water level were to rise and flow at a dangerously rapid pace, this platform could provide a safe place to wait it out, and hope it's not a long one. Leaving via the manhole is out of the question. For one thing, those things are heavy. And on top of that, I actually have no idea where that thing is going to come up. It could emerge in the middle of the road, and one truck to the face could ruin my entire day.

 

Here we have some rungs to nowhere, from nowhere. It's evidence that this drain system has been re-built at some point.

 

The main tunnel concluded here, with a ladder on the right, a crawlspace in front of me, and a small area on the left. Interestingly the bit on the left actually went around this big square space, with two ladders leading to the surface. I could hear voices above me. I think I'm next to a building.  

 

But with no way to know for sure, I turned my attention to the crawl tunnel. Of course, only a complete moron would consider crawling along a drain.

 

Whoopsie!

I crawled for about half an hour, and my joints sure did start to ache! But the crawl tunnel was broken up periodically by respite points. That is, areas with ladders, where I could stand up straight for a bit.

 

 

The downside is when the tunnel continued, it was even narrower. But long-time readers of the blog will know that this isn't the first time I've ever been in such a situation. The drain off Welsh Bridge was far tinier and I squeezed (Squoze?) up that for a good amount of time too, albeit not nearly as long as I did with this one.

 

The sad fact about drains is they don't really end that well. They just get narrower and narrower. The reward is in the doing rather than in the completion.

 

 

Eventually I decided to turn back. The tunnel made a sharp turn up ahead, but dipped a bit and was full of about six inches of dark stagnant water with an awful aroma. I decided to call it a day and head back. 

I was a bit tired after the half hour crawl, and consequently the crawl back took longer, giving me plenty of time to think about what would happen were it to suddenly rain while I'm on my hands and knees in such a cramped space.

 

Hey look! It's a spider, coated in a fungal infection. I documented these before in my blog about the cancer labs. The fungus is called Engyodontium Aranearum, and its poor victim is the cellar spider. The cellar spider has more knees than the average spider, and this means it has a thinner exo-skeleton, in order to be able to move. Unfortunately this makes it vulnerable to the fungus, which basically keeps the spider alive as it eats it from the inside out. It's pretty gruesome, and it leaves the spiders as these cute little dead fluffballs.

 

The adventure is not over... after the storm drain I decided to find a stream that had been built over. 

 

So this one is basically a great big tube with stalactites growing down from the ceiling. It's pretty awesome. This actually was a stream prior to Shrewsbury being plonked over it, so the water is flowing a little faster, and while it's probably not safe to drink, it does support life. I saw a few frogs down here, as well as fish and various insects. It's kinda cool. I mean, what are their lifespans? The average British frog will last about five to ten years. It's possible that I was their first ever encounter with a human being. Poor little bastards. 

Bats apparently aren't uncommon in tunnels like this either, but alas, I saw none.

 

 

It's basically one big tube, broken up occasionally by ladders to the surface. The colouration on the walls is a good indicator of how deep the water gets, and that's probably good news. But I was slowly starting to ponder how much fun it would be to ride down this on an inflatable donut during a heavy storm. It would basically become one big subterranean water slide!

I probably won't do it, but it does sound fun.

 

In the distance I could hear a pretty loud noise up ahead that I thought at first might be the sound of busy traffic. But as I got closer I realised it was a fuckload of water flowing, which meant I was heading towards something relatively interesting and dangerous to break up the monotony of the tunnel.

Finally I found the source of the noise. And in such a confined space it was pretty deafening. It's a waterfall!

 

So it's a good thing I wasn't approaching from that end of the tunnel, isn't it? And again, this shows just how dangerous a drain can be. Getting swept off your feet down a tunnel might sound recoverable, but I wouldn't want to be swept off the top of that. Curiously the brickwork up there looked a lot older than the part I was in, so I was really curious about seeing it. Luckily for me, there's a great big ladder nearby.

 

I have no idea where the ladder comes up. Opening the hatch isn't important though.

 

So by climbing the ladder I was able to catch a glimpse at the rest of the tunnel, and some of the brickwork. It was far older than the part that I'm in, although I'm not sure how old exactly. Clearly at some point it was modiified and attached to the big modern tube. I was very curious about how I was going to get up there, seeing as it involved scaling a subterranean waterfall that was completely lacking in handholds or footholds.

 

But you know I totally found a way. Here's a view of the ladder, from the top of the waterfall.

 

This is absolutely the best part of the tunnel, purely because it's so old. There's two different examples of masonry here. The roof of the tunnel is brickwork, but the walls are older stonework. This is amazing!

And the just like that the tunnel ends. It would be possible to crawl under this obstruction, but look at the floor. Why would I want to? Also up ahead is a big metal grate over the mouth of the tunnel, stopping people with a somewhat less-than-firm grasp on their survival instincts from venturing downstream, to get to where I am now ironically sitting. Given that this tunnel literally leads to a waterfall, that's no surprise really. 

 

To conclude, I really enjoyed this little mooch under the streets of Shrewsbury. I know when it comes to underground tunnels, people generally prefer to think of ancient secret passageways that lead from one building to another, that served some long forgotten purpose. But the truth is, this sort is far more numerous, and it's another angle of my town to explore. I've heard rumours that Shrewsbury has some that are big enough to drive a car down, but I'm a little sceptical. We flood far too often to have storm drains that spectacular, let's be honest.

If anyone wants to do storm drain exploring, well, I'm not going to say where the openings are, because I don't want someones death on my conscience, and your eagerness probably won't outweigh my belief in human idiocy. I'm not a role model. I'm stupid and lucky. I'm having the time of my life being me, but I'm not setting a good example. 

But if you do really want to explore drains and you know where they are then make sure you do it on a dry day, and tell someone where you're going. Bring a torch. Preferably a head torch so that you can use your arms to catch yourself if you slip. Bring spare batteries. And also, know your limits. If you think it's time to turn back, turn back. This isn't a dick measuring contest, and you're not a coward for wanting to live. 

Anyway that's all I've got. My next blog is a local bunker, and then I'm taking a look around an abandoned hotel on my internatrional blog. It's gonna be pretty cool. 

In the meantime, follow me on my various social medias. Instagram is by far the one I use the most, but I'm also on Vero, Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter for some reason.

Seriously, why am I on Twitter?

Thanks for reading!