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The ‘Secret Bunker’ dates from the Cold War in the 1950s when it was built as a radar station forming part of a network codenamed ROTOR. It was one of 25 ‘Ground Control Intercept’ stations to detect incoming enemy nuclear bombers in sufficient time to allow fighter aircraft to engage them. It operated as a ROTOR radar station from 1953 to 1958 and became the Scottish Northern Zone Regional Seat of Government and later continued as Regional Government HQ until closure in 1993.

It’s worth noting that the ROTOR underground bunkers were not designed to withstand a nuclear weapon, but would remain intact after attack by 1-ton armour-piercing bombs dropped from 26,000 feet.

It is now a tourist attraction with road signs showing the route to Scotland’s Secret Bunker. Most of the two-storey bunker’s rooms are on display showing the equipment as it was in the early 1990s along with some World War II material, background to the Cold War and the Royal Observer Corps, and two small cinemas, one of which shows Peter Watkins’ striking and thought-provoking 1965 film ‘The War Game’.

(Source: ‘Cold War Secret Nuclear Bunkers’ by Nick McCamley, Pen & Sword Military Classics, Barnsley 2007.)

Secret Bunker website: Link