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!
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