Bunkers are not a new fad. News reports over the past few weeks have described President Donald Trump going into his bunker as riots broke out near the White house (he later said he was just ‘inspecting’ the bunker) but bunkers have long been in use to protect civilisation should everything go wrong.
During the second world war, air raid shelters were constructed to protect families from bombing campaigns – in the UK Anderson shelters were put up in back gardens, and in London, the underground served as the perfect bunker, protecting families from all over the city.
The cold war saw bunkers head deeper underground, as they had to contend with the potential deadly blast and fallout of nuclear weapons. Air filtration systems, as well as food supplies lasting for weeks, if not months were stockpiled. These were mostly to protect councils, and government officials.
During the 1990s, many of the old bunkers were forgotten about and fell into disrepair. Some were purchased and restored, and some served as storage facilities for local councils.
Recently, there has been a rise in doomsday preppers – and the rich and famous have got in on the act. Luxury bunkers are big business. When the apocalypse comes – whether it is global nuclear war or catastrophic climate change disasters, some people will be surviving in style. Luxury bunkers are big business, with many celebrities snapping one up, equipped with swimming pools, home comforts such as ambient lighting and column radiators – these are virtually unrecognisable compared to the cold war bunkers of yesteryear.
Britain’s Cold War bunkers
Long before luxury bunkers became fashionable, Britain built shelters for a very different threat. After the Second World War, tension between the West and the Soviet Union, with Germany divided between them, raised fears of nuclear war. Shelters were built across the world, and in the 1980s the British government issued its Protect and Survive booklets, explaining how to build a shelter and what to stock it with.
Local councils had their own underground bunkers so that local government could keep running after an attack. The largest in the UK is near Corsham and was designed to house senior military officials and even the Royal Family, with some claiming it had a royal suite. It is now believed to be used for storage.
Some bunkers have been opened to the public, laid out as they would have been in readiness for an attack, with decommissioned warheads and artefacts used by local government. Many others still lie abandoned in the countryside, a reminder of a war that never caused them to be used.
From wartime shelters to modern preppers
Bunkers once seemed to belong to the past. The Anderson shelters of the Second World War were followed by the underground bunkers of the Cold War, and from the early 1990s many of those fell into ruin, relics of a threat that seemed to have gone.
Interest has returned as worries about climate change, wildfires, flooding, storms, nuclear weapons and pandemics have grown. So-called doomsday preppers, once a small group, are now far more numerous, with websites, groups and message boards devoted to the subject, and more people are considering bunkers of their own.
Building one starts with finding the right location, and planning maps help to identify suitable sites. Anyone serious about it also has to research the systems that keep a bunker habitable. A generator is needed for electricity, along with reliable ways to bring in clean air and water. Those basic systems are the starting point, whether the finished shelter is spartan or luxurious.