Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker

The Kelvedon Hatch bunker was built in 1952 53 as part of ROTOR. ROTOR was a programme to improve and harden Britain's air defence network. It was constructed by Peter Lind & Company of London who still trades today. The bunker was a hardened (three level 'R4') Sector Operations Centre (SOC) for RAF Fighter Command. It was to provide command and control of the London Sector of Fighter Command. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, the UK government (Home Office) maintained the bunker as an emergency regional government defence site. Eventually, in the early 1990s, when nuclear threats in general were seen as diminished, the bunker was sold back to the farming family who had owned the land in…

The three-level bunker was first built on compulsorily purchased farmland as an air defence station (an 'R4' Sector Operations Control or SOC) as part of the RAF ROTOR air defence project. Upon the demise of the ROTOR SOC the remaining Nuclear Reporting Cell and UKWMO elements were incorporated into a Home Office 'Regional Seat of Government' or RSG. The bunker was able to hold various numbers (in the hundreds) of military and civilian personnel, the numbers changing over the years as the role of the building changed from SOC to RSG and, in its later years, 'Regional Government Headquarters' or RGHQ. In the event of a nuclear strike the RSG/RGHQs would be tasked to organise the survival of…