The Cold War Bunker at Gravesend: Origins and heritage development
Beneath a grassy slope on the eastern edge of Woodlands Park in Gravesend is a reinforced concrete bunker. Inside is displayed a vision of the twilight world of preparation and shelter from a feared nuclear Armageddon. Built in 1954, during the early part of the Cold War, its mostly volunteer staff of the Civil Defence Corps were to be ready and waiting to direct the rescue of survivors from bomb-damaged ruins in the event of a nuclear attack affecting the locality, as well as to coordinate a range of civil defence responses in the community. The bunker was not alone but was one of a network of many, now almost forgotten, local civil defence control centres that formed the nerve centres of a national resilience infrastructure.
2024 marks the 70th anniversary of the bunker’s government-attended commissioning ceremony and 20 years since its official opening as a public heritage attraction, also attended by a government representative. This is an opportune time to share a retrospective.
[fg]png|Fig 1: Bunker entrance|Image[/fg]
Refurnished and re-equipped, the bunker looks precisely as it did in the 1950s and 60s. There are rooms for decision-making and the command and control of local rescue and recovery resources, for communications with the world outside, the reception of couriers carrying messages, emergency power plant, and sleeping accommodation. During and after a nuclear strike, perhaps even, it was suggested, reinforced with the use of chemical and biological weapons, the 35 or so personnel within the bunker would have been enclosed in anxious isolation as, potentially, parts of the world around them became an irradiated, destroyed and poisoned landscape.
[fg]png|Fig 2: Spine corridor|Image[/fg]
In the locality and in the country beyond, there would have been large numbers of war dead and injured, millions nationally, the starving, sick, displaced and wandering people, seeking succour but soon to be without hope and filled with despair for large numbers, only to be relieved by their death, which some might have welcomed. In a situation of unspeakable horror, there would have been so many suffering people as to be beyond the practicality of assistance in the probably very extensive worst-hit areas. The bunker expresses the terrifying existential threat of nuclear devastation during the Cold War.
Britain contained many tempting military, infrastructural and other targets for an attacker, principally expected to be Russia and the Soviet Union. Locally, there were Tilbury Docks, several power stations, and the Chatham naval base. From these, blast waves from nuclear detonations could be expected to strike the Gravesend area. As well as this, there would have been the threat of deadly radioactive fallout, whether from explosions at these targets or that blowing in from others elsewhere, not least London, if the wind came from the wrong direction. Rescue personnel outside might themselves have succumbed to injury and radiation sickness. Those inside the bunker would have survived for as long as food, water and power for lighting, equipment, communications and filtering the poisoned air from outside continued. Despite an imperative for discipline, their worry and stress, with families left outside, could have brought some to breaking point.
[fg]png|Fig 3: 3D cutaway of bunker|Image[/fg]
The bunker was the setting for weekly training by the local Civil Defence Corps and occasional large exercises involving other control centres. The Corps was disbanded in 1968, but the bunker was retained in a standby role until its abandonment in the early 1970s. Under different arrangements, command and control functions were transferred to rooms at the Civic Centre in Gravesend. These were discontinued after the Cold War ended in 1989/90. Meanwhile, the bunker had become used as a council file store and a repository for some local museum objects. It was revealed in 1990 during the writer’s study of historic military and civil defences in northwest Kent undertaken for the Heritage Conservation Group of Kent County Council.
This was followed in 1995 by a successful request to the owner, Gravesham Borough Council, by the New Tavern Fort Project (later renamed Thames Defence Heritage) to undertake restoration of the bunker and its opening to the public. A phased and responsible removal of the stored contents of the bunker followed, and a scheme evolved to use the setting to display the Cold War’s history, with limited restoration of several rooms. A replica of part of the Berlin Wall was even started in one room to symbolise this period. A full-size replica of a Royal Observer Corps underground radiation monitoring post was completed (the latter being retained). However, this approach was reconsidered as the considerable potential for historic refurnishing and re-equipment of the bunker as a Civil Defence Control Centre became apparent.
Some of the machinery of the power plant, as well as limited fixed furniture remained. The challenge was to find out exactly what was missing from the bunker, what was needed to complete the original interior appearance and, indeed, where to find it. Fact-finding began by wading through thousands of pages of original documentation to determine the detailed history, operational practices and procedures, context and the nature of required fixtures and fittings.
[fg]png|Fig 4: Zones of destruction|Image[/fg]
Other surviving bunkers were also studied. Eyewitnesses with memories of the bunker were interviewed for their information and other historians of the Cold War were consulted. This process took several years, with several false dawns along the way, a healthy questioning of the evidence gathered and seeking new sources of information. It was then possible to make sense of the evidence collected and to evolve a plan for authentic refurnishing.
Having secured this information, the next task was to seek, find and obtain the items needed to be placed in the rooms. This led to some interesting journeys, for example, to a Post Office bunker in Canterbury to load a trailer with the appropriate telephonists’ chairs for the Message Room, another Post Office bunker at Worthing for telephone switchboards, a nightmare overnight drive in thunder, lightning and rain up the M1 to Marchington Camp in East Staffordshire for various items, to the basement of Reigate Town Hall for some furnishings and other items, as well as to a massive ex-government War Room at Tunbridge Wells. A bunker at Strood, last used during the Millennium Bug scare of 2000, proved a useful source of some items.
Researched authentic chairs for the Control Room were ‘walked’ to the bunker from a second-hand store in Gravesend, while other appropriate tables were secured from Gravesham Borough Council, together with plan chests, bunk beds, teleprinters, walkie-talkie radios and many other items from elsewhere. Indeed, the list of items obtained is almost endless. ‘Emergency butter-making churns’ donated from a county bunker were containers for sanitary towels, just right in nature and date for placing in the bunker ladies’ toilet. Because of prohibitive purchase costs, some items, such as candlestick telephones, had to be replicated. The effort of the Thames Defence Heritage volunteers during the furniture and equipment collection and restoration process was epic, and it was a pleasure to work with them. The skill and expertise of the late Harry Soder in checking, renewing, and upgrading the wiring of the bunker were noteworthy, and the support of Gravesham Borough Council at all stages was gratefully received.
Before full refurnishing, the bunker was opened to the public in a limited way from 2000. By the ceremonial official opening in 2004, much of the work had been conducted. The attendance at the ceremony of an attaché from the Embassy of the Russian Federation was a remarkable and unprecedented event, stimulating a longer-than-intended stay by BBC TV news.
[fg]png|Fig 5: Plant room|Image[/fg]
[fg]png|Fig 6: Message room|Image[/fg]
[fg]png|Fig 7: Control room|Image[/fg]
[fg]png|Fig 8: Women’s dormitory|Image[/fg]
A later bid to the embassy to obtain certain information to enable representation of an air-dropped Russian nuclear bomb was not rejected but, although passed on, went unreplied to by the Ministry of Defence in Moscow. Thankfully, and due to the assistance of Adam Holloway, Gravesham MP, and then a member of the Commons Defence Committee, a British WE177 bomb was obtained from the Royal Air Force and is displayed in the lecture room at the bunker to underscore the ever-present nuclear dimension to the Cold War.
Choices of furnishings, equipment, and layouts at the bunker have been guided by certainty, where the evidence allows this, or by a strong balance of probability, as suggested from available information. This is an approach adopted at many refurnished historic sites. But the journey is never entirely over, and from time to time, minor adjustments or additions are made if new information comes to light. In this context, enduring vigilance and discipline must be applied to ensure that inappropriate items are not added, which can easily compromise the intended effect. The appearance and ambience of the rooms have much in common with the 1940s. This attracted the use of the bunker as a setting for part of the Second World War Sean Bean film Age of Heroes (2011), in which a council official played a part. More recently (2024), it was used to film a short feature about Adolf Hitler’s dog, Blondi.
Although not entirely considered a heritage site by a county authority when the project was first proposed, it came to be selected as the only local civil defence control centre to fully feature in English Heritage’s Cold War – Building for Nuclear Confrontation 1946-1989 (2003). Moreover, the heritage value of the bunker led, in 2013, to its designation as a Grade II Listed building.
The bunker is an enduring and memorable visitor attraction, with regular tours given by volunteer guides throughout the year. There are special visits by arrangement. The success of the bunker is the result of a partnership between Thames Defence Heritage and Gravesham Borough Council. This began with a mutual recognition of the historic importance of the site and its strong potential for heritage development. This has been the key. Without it, there would be no heritage attraction. Extensive remedial works to the building were completed by Gravesham Borough Council in 2017, demonstrating the authority’s firm commitment to the future. Thames Defence Heritage continues to bring the bunker ‘back to life’ for visitors with energy and knowledge. Opportunities continue to exist to undertake new things to enhance the visitor experience, whether by introducing sound effects or enacting the bunker ‘in action.’ Next to the site was a Second World War public air raid shelter. Its buried structure might be detected and plotted by geophysical means.
Although the bunker portrays a distinct period of our and world history, spokesmen for the Russian Federation continue to remind Britain and the West that they have a large arsenal of nuclear weapons which could be used against us. As we seem to be moving into a new Cold War, it would be interesting to know the extent to which an appropriate infrastructure for civil protection might be under government consideration. A visit to the bunker at Gravesend focuses the mind!
For more information about tours and to book on one of the available dates, please visit the Gravesham Tourism website www.visitgravesend.co.uk. Special tours can also be arranged by contacting: visits.gravesend@gravesham.gov.uk.
Enquiries about the bunker may also be made by email to: sandrasoder@yahoo.co.uk and there is information on Facebook: Thames Defence Heritage Gravesend.
A profusely illustrated booklet (29 pages), Preparing for Armageddon: The Story of Gravesend’s Cold War Bunker, is available priced £2.50 when touring the bunker or from (a) Visit Gravesend or (b) Sandra Soder. Postal copies incur an additional charge.
(The writer, Victor Smith, was formerly Director of Thames Defence Heritage, and oversaw the creation and development of the bunker project, managed by the current director, Sandra Soder, assisted by her deputy, Jay Curtis. At Gravesham Borough Council, the project is ably supported by Virginie Whittaker, Tourism and Heritage Manager).
[fg]png|Fig 9: British WE177 bomb|Image[/fg]
[fg]png|Fig 10: Plan of bunker|Image[/fg]
[fg]png|Fig 11: Bunker exit|Image[/fg]