Another ROC bunker

If you live in the UK, there's a good chance that you live within 10km of one of these lovely Cold War relics. This is a nuclear monitoring post that was manned by the Royal Observer Corps back when nuclear war was considered a very real possibility. Initially the Royal Observer Corps, or ROC, were tasked with spotting and reporting enemy aircraft from special monitoring posts in the countryside.

But as the Cold War took off, the ROC facilities moved underground, and their duties changed to monitoring for nuclear weapons. To this end, 1,563 subterranean bunkers were established all over the country, each one filled with equipment designed to monitor for nuclear blasts and communicate the findings across a wider network so that appropriate action could be taken. 

 

The ROC bunkers were also equipped to keep their staff safe, and if there's an urbex comment bingo then "We might need these soon," should be on it because ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, every time someone posts one of these bunkers, someone comments that underneath.

 

Needless to say, after all these years anyone who thinks a ROC bunker will provide adequate protection against nuclear strikes today is deluded, and we could honestly do without you in a post-apocalypse society, but stick around anyway so that we've got something to eat, yeah? 

 

Here's a diagram of a ROC post being used. It's not my picture, obviously, but ROC bunkers were built mostly identical, so it's an accurate depiction of what this one would have looked like back when it was active. As you can see, it's pretty tiny, but built to be lived in if there was a crisis. If you want to imagine hell, imagine being stationed down here with your most annoying work colleague in the event of a nuclear strike. 

 

Just take a deep breath and remind yourself that you'll need something to eat when the rations run out.

 

The ROC bunkers were built in 1963, but most of them were decommissioned in 1968. A few were retained until 1991, including this one. At that point, what happened to them seems to vary from place to place. Some were sealed up, perfectly preserved. Some were left open and vandalised. Some were flat out demolished. The aim of visiting ROC bunkers is to find one that's accessible and in good condition. They do exist. I've blogged about a few now. But there is an online database that says where they all are, which means they aren't secret. The admittedly noble intention of documenting these places on the internet has proven to be their downfall. For urbex purposes, it's handy to have a database that says where they are, but it's woefully out of date, so traveling out these is still a gamble. One of my favourite local ones recently had a boulder cemented over the access hatch. 

So I personally don't travel out solely for ROC bunkers. But this hobby gets me out and about, so if I'm ever in the proximity of one, I will swing by to check it out.

As you can see, the hatch was no longer attached to this one, and the exterior features are pretty run down. Surely only an idiot would climb down this ladder, right?

Whoopsie!

Remember folks, it wasn't the bunker that killed those kids in "The Hole." It was falling in love. Avoid that and you'll be fine.

At the bottom of the ladder, as expected, is the pump for removing waste water. In the majority that I've seen, the pump handle has been wooden, but at some point this one was replaced with a metal one.

The room itself is in a pretty sorry state. The shelves at the back are original, and on the floor there is a crate that would have contained a handheld warning siren to be used to alert the public in an attack. The old telecom boxes are still on the wall, but apart from that, it's just full of junk.

The desk, chairs and bed are gone, but what we do have is what appears to be a squatters nest.

All over the walls are sheets with pictures of big cats on them, presumably hung up by the squatter for decoration. 

In all fairness, squatting in a bunker does sound like a pretty fun wild camping experience.

Here are the remains of the telecom equipment. The majority of it would have been cleared out when the monitoring post closed in 1991.

There's a sheep skull here.

And back over by the ladder is the rest of the sheep. It looks like the sheep fell down the hatch and died, likely of starvation. What a horrible way to go.

But the hatch is on a raised platform so it's hard to imagine how a sheep would get into this predicament on its own. It all seems very ominous. I presume it was after the squatter vacated. 

 

Imagine camping in one of these things and then suddenly a terrified sheep comes plummeting down the hatch. That would certainly make the experience memorable.

At the back of the ROC bunker is a little air vent that leads up to one of the ROC bunkers external features. In this case, the external part of the vent has been pretty badly damaged.

So that's the ROC bunker. By modern standards they probably don't look like much, but they are echoes of a very different time in human history, when nuclear weapons were new, and the world leaders asses were clenched so tight that when they farted, only dogs could hear it. I think they're important relics of the past, and while it's not unheard of that some are fixed up and restored, it's still a shame when others are left to rot. Perhaps their derelict condition is symbolic of how we take our safety for granted today, or how quick we are to forget the efforts made to keep us safe once the threat is over. 

 

Whatever the case, what kind of person just lets these get into such a bad condition? If I had land which just happened to have a ROC bunker on it, I'd build a shed over the top of it, so that the casual observer thinks the bunker has gone, and then I'd make it into the ultimate mancave.

As far as urbex goes, ROC bunkers are great for beginners, because they're everywhere. So many people getting into urbex will ask "Are there any abandoned places in Whatevershire?" Yes, Timmy, there's one of these. Also, how is it 2023 and people still don't know about Google?

The more experienced urbexer is better off checking these out if they happen to be in the area, because there's really very little point in traveling far just for one of these. I really like them though. I like the fact that I never know what to expect. It makes it more of a surprise when I find one in good shape. I also find the cold war to be a very fascinating era in human history, so these are appealing for that reason too.

My next blog will be a chapel, and then I'll be back on my international blog for a huge factory death trap thing. In the meantime, to make sure you always get updates, follow me on the algorithmic hellscapes that are Instagram, Reddit, Facebook and Twitter. I'm possibly one of the few users on Instagram that's an actual human being, so that's a novelty. 

Thanks for reading!