(4) The underground headquarters built in BROWNS QUARRY (later known as RAF RUDLOE MANOR) to house the headquarters of No.10 Group, Fighter Command. (3) The sinister and secret underground repositories built to house the contents of the National Gallery at MONOD, in the bleak mountains to the North of Ffestiniog, and the deep stone quarry at WESTWOOD in Wiltshire that housed the greatest treasures of the V&A and the British Museum. (2) The two-million square foot SPRING QUARRY underground aircraft engine factory at Corsham, and the other smaller but similar sites at DRAKELOW, WARREN ROW, WESTWOOD and DUDLEY Many of these underground sites were concentrated in the Corsham area of North Wiltshire, where hundreds of acres of disused stone mines, buried over 100 below the peaceful rural landscape, were converted at the cost of tens of millions of pounds, into huge and awesome bomb-proof cities.Īfter an introduction explaining the inter-war military, economic and political factors that influenced the governments policy on underground protection, the book goes on describe in detail the construction and operation of all the major sites including: (1) CENTRAL AMMUNITION DEPOT CORSHAM (Tunnel Quarry, Monkton Farleigh Quarry, and the Ridge/Eastlays underground complex)
SECRET UNDERGROUND CITIES is the history of the series of vast underground arsenals, factories and control bunkers built by the British government during the Second World War, and of the new uses found for many of these subterranean cities as nuclear shelters and command centres during the period of post-war, cold-war paranoia. Describes the major, WW2 UK government underground works