DISQUS

Underground: Burlington Cold War City at Corsham, UK.

  • Tokes · 1 year ago
    As far as I can gather, there are many underground MOD sites like this across the UK, some of which are now in disuse, others are still maintained. I have visited part of one myself, near Bath, in the southwest of England. It was a fascinating place, and I'll try to dig up some photos that don't include myself and my companions, because while now unused for years and having fallen into disrepair, the place hasn't been declassified yet.

    But it was an amazing place, quite unlike any trip down the dozens of mines that scatter the area. Truly cavernous, the walls and ceilings were perfectly sculpted, with huge stone pillars stretching to the twenty-feet-high roof. Tracks for a small train/cart system were laid down many of the long passages, though now mostly broken. Wiring was still attached to the walls and ceilings, no doubt previously used to carry power to the lights and other electrical equipment. Some rooms looked like they were built for storage (and my well-informed contact tells me the place was once a munitions dump, amongst other things), and other rooms looked like offices, or even cells. There was even a toilet block still in one piece, though rest assured, my friends and I didn't use it. :-P
  • Rofl Mao Zedong · 1 year ago
    Perhaps you're not getting any comments because the grey text on a black background is unreadable?
    Just a thought.
  • mrtruffle · 1 year ago
    Maybe your gamma on your monitor is set too low. But good point I'll tweak the CSS.
  • 3px · 1 year ago
    Just noticed you updated the text, looks great now!
  • Ratbags · 1 year ago
    Now I know where Englishmen will go when the Zombie Apocalypse is upon us!!
  • mrtruffle · 1 year ago
    hahah to true. Have you read the Zombie Survival Guide? Great read. http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/zombiesurvival...
  • A man from corsham · 1 year ago
    Wow!! this thing is right underneath my feet! Maybe if I dig far enough I can find it and claim it as my own!
  • xen · 1 year ago
    Okay, let's talk turkey here. How much for the bunker? How about you write a figure and I'll write a figure and let's see if we can't find something that will satisfy us both. I'm a busy man and Ratbags seems to know what's going down... I can see you're hesitant. Fine. Have your people call my people, assuming both sets of people haven't been turned into ravening undead monsters. Get back to me. The life you save may be... well, mine, to be perfectly frank. You can come too.
  • mrtruffle · 1 year ago
    hehehe do they accept Paypal?
  • xen · 1 year ago
    I certainly hope so or we are doomed.

    Wait, you did mean the zombies, right?
  • Griswold · 1 year ago
    Of course the Zombies will accept PayPal.
  • s · 1 year ago
    Do they do tours of the site? Cuz I'd definitely have to put it on my list for my next trip to England
  • mrtruffle · 1 year ago
    Sadly no. I think they wanted to sell it rather than run tours. Sad it could have become an awesome museum or historical tourist attraction. I know I'd rather check this out than Big Ben.
  • johnabbottthefirst · 1 year ago
    i had some friends who in 1975 purchased telephone switchboards made for the battlefield use from the us govt. the wiring was silver and the contacts were gold. got rich stripping them.
  • mrtruffle · 1 year ago
    MMM there's probably a boatload of money to be had stripping this place for it's resouces as well. Give me a few days alone in there with an all you can carry policy.
  • Martina · 1 year ago
    OK, the day someone decides to throw a larp at this place, give me a nudge, OK? I promise, I will bring a team from Sweden for it...
  • McCow · 1 year ago
    Wowsers ......be a cool pad to hang out,,,,,,,,really nice decor
  • mrtruffle · 1 year ago
    hehe I was thinking more ultimate paintball. You and 100 other people in the world's biggest painball session. Last one alove wins!
  • David · 1 year ago
    This looks like a bunch of bad ray-tracing to me. We could have done this twenty years ago on our Unix Microstations.
  • mrtruffle · 1 year ago
    hahah maybe not
  • me · 1 year ago
    definitely photoshopped
  • mrtruffle · 1 year ago
    haha you're kidding right? What is photoshopped?
  • Paula · 1 year ago
    Brown font on a black background isn't a heckofalot better than gray font. May I recommend a site called "Webpages that Suck"? for advice on how to improve your visuals? Otherwise, fascinating article. It figures that government people would think they were that indispensible that they'd get to preserve themselves like this while everybody above them has blasted to Kingdom Come or turned into mutants.
  • mrtruffle · 1 year ago
    hey Paula,

    hehe maybe i'll do a black on white version for people with distinct colour hatred. You're right though it's not perfect but we're still tweaking.
  • Emily · 1 year ago
    Love the colour scheme! - looks awesome and totally readable.
    Very interesting site - keep up the good work!
  • mrtruffle · 1 year ago
    Thanks.
  • Maox · 1 year ago
    "Maaaaaaaybeee......"

    "War.. War never changes."

    Life outside Vault 13 is nowhere NEAR this sweet! WEAR PROTECTIVE GOGGLES!
  • daniel · 1 year ago
    This looks like it would be a cool setting for a video game.
  • icarus · 1 year ago
    can't read brown on black :-(
  • mrtruffle · 1 year ago
    I might have to make a white on black version. On my monitor and the others here in the office it pings like a mofo
  • Martin · 1 year ago
    When the UK was under real threat of invasion during the 2nd world war, the military decided that the Germans would obviously target London via Dover, in the event of a successful landing they would be trapped by massive underground complexes built in Kent, with massive underground stations just outside London. The military concluded that with the German army stuck in no mans land the local population would also rise up and instigate horrendous casualties. These complexes are still used by the military!
  • Oleg · 1 year ago
    Amazing Place and quality images!
  • trickie · 1 year ago
    We have one of these in Canada called the Diefenbunker after former Prime Minister Diefenbaker who was Prime Minister during its time of use. Now its a tourist attraction open for tours and even sporting a gift shop
  • buzzbomb · 1 year ago
    awesome article dude,and thnx for the zomibie sruvival guide link.that was pretty funny.

    and after this comment im going around to read other articles you have.
  • Miguel Causshi · 1 year ago
    heil Hittler¡¡
  • bbabie333 · 1 year ago
    well i liked the zombie survival guide. it might help alot one day... hahahah but back to the point i think i can see the writing...yes i can ... and im a lil itty bitty bit color blind so yea mayb these haters r playin ya
    hahahahahahahah
  • hk567luv3 · 1 year ago
    dats actually REALLY cool it amazes me!
  • Dan · 1 year ago
    Please can you make sure all the photographs are corrected with the name of the photographer (me!) as you have helped yourself to them from Flickr without getting permission. They look nice though and as someone says - quality images!

    Daniel Brown
  • mrtruffle · 1 year ago
    will add the credit ASAP
  • Dan · 11 months ago
    Just a polite reminder. Please credit the photos or I will have to ask to you to remove them. Daniel Brown.
  • mrtruffle · 11 months ago
    Ok this is now done
  • Nick Packham · 11 months ago
    Wow what an interesting site and superb quality pics too.
    I'm going to link to you from my site.
    I've recently been reading about Burlington.
  • matt · 9 months ago
    OMG this is cool
  • Dan · 2 months ago
    What happened to the photo credits?

    All these photos (not PhotoShopped) were taken by Dan Brown. His website is www.bathintime.co.uk

    Please either credit the photographer or remove the pictures. Many thanks
  • mrtruffle · 2 months ago
    Oh shit sorry what happened was when I added the credits I did it manually (as the Moveable type server went down) and now it's moved to a new server it reverted to what was saved in the DB.

    Changing now
  • mrtruffle · 2 months ago
    Ok fixed. Sorry about that. It sucks when the actual story of why it happened sounds like BS but I assure you it wasn't a conspiracy for me to remove credits. That's why it took so long before the previous Moveable Type install just bugged out and I couldn't update any of the posts. New server now and the blog is non commercial now (a side project of mine).
  • Dan · 2 months ago
    That's cool. Thanks for fixing it.