The historic bunker in Barnton Quarry in Clermiston, Edinburgh was built in the 1940s and remained completely secret until it was declassified in 1955.
Category
đź—ž
NewsTranscript
00:00So, my name is Graham Moore, I'm one of the volunteers here at the Barton Quarry Restoration
00:06Project and we're working here to restore this original building here, which comprises
00:13this surface building here, which is an SOC, Sector Operations Centre for the RAF from
00:171940, but mainly we're working here to restore the 1951-52 deep bunker, the R4 underground
00:25bunker that's buried here 100 feet under Christoffen Hill.
00:29So the building here, the site here is one of the closest, if not the closest, deep bunker
00:34in the UK to any large conurbation.
00:37We are approximately three miles from the city centre of Edinburgh here, in the suburb
00:41of Clermaston, and yeah, it's basically three miles as the crow flies from the centre of
00:46the town.
00:47So the building was built here in 1940 as the Sector Operations Centre for the Turnhouse
00:53Sector of 13 Group RAF, and basically the building was a home for the fighter commanders
00:58and the intention of the building here was to coordinate movements of fighters to combat
01:03German attacks, and then laterally, because the building was in the possession of the
01:09RAF, the site was also used under the Cherry Plan, what was called the Rotor Project, as
01:16the Sector Operations Centre for the whole of Scotland, to basically detect and establish
01:20fighter command response to long-range Russian nuclear bombers.
01:24So from here, there's a tunnel behind me here that goes almost 400 feet down into the
01:30rock of Barnton Quarry, and at the deepest point you're around 100 feet underground.
01:34So the wall's 10 feet thick, ferroconcrete, designed to protect against standard 2,200
01:39pound, in other words one tonne, high explosive bombs dropped by the Russians from 20,000 feet.