Nuclear Bunker in Leeds Coal Mine ?!?

jonleeds · Post by **jonleeds** » Sun 09 Oct, 2011 8:18 pm

Hi Mholden, I'm right at the side of the A6120 outer ring road at West Park so not far from you, and yes I contributed to Matt Poveys posting of the 'Leeds and the Bomb' booklet as JonLeeds for which I was enormously grateful to see as I had been looking for it both on the internet and elsewhere for years. You are right that even out in places as far away as Horsforth / Pudsey / Rothwell etc we would still be probably decimated by the initial blastwave should a 1 megatonne ICBM have detonated over the city of Leeds. In reality a city like Leeds would probably have been pummelled by several missiles carrying multi-megatonne war heads -at least one on the city, one on the airport and then probably a good few, maybe even one SS-20 ICBM carrying a 20 Megatonne warhead onto Menwith Hill U.S airbase / Early Warning station which allegedly is a hardened target with reinforced bunkers that go over a dozen stories below ground. So in Horsforth we would have been sandwiched nicely between all these places. 'Fortunate' survivors of the initial onslaught would then have weeks worth of highly radioactive fallout from the ground-zero areas and the plumes of the mushroom clouds that would disperse and blanket the entire region. As a bonus in Leeds we are in direct line of the prevailing westerly winds that would have swept the inevitable fallout from the obliteration of Manchester and Liverpool, and even worse the nuclear power stations of Sellafield etc would have been prime targets and the deadly and much longer lasting isotopes of radioactive fallout that would have been released from their bombing would poison most of the North of England for centuries to come - as in the same way that the Chernobyl disaster has rendered vast tracts of the Ukraine and Russia no-go zones. Pretty shocking stuff eh? Its amazing that people were largely ignorant about a lot of this, but as they say 'ignorance is bliss' and I often wonder if I would have been better off being ignorant rather than haunted by hideous recurring nightmares of WW3 breaking out and the atrocities that would ensue in its aftermath.... Well I hope thats not put you off your Sunday dinner anyway! Lets hear some more from you folks about your memories of armageddon that never came!Cheers!Johnny

Post by **chameleon** » Sun 09 Oct, 2011 9:23 pm

Having no doubt like many, felt the youthful paranoia over such an event, I'm quietly resolved that it would be better to be right at the heart of it. Gloomy but probably better than what would be left

jonleeds · Post by **jonleeds** » Mon 10 Oct, 2011 12:50 am

Yep that seems to be a common wish -to be incinerated in a instant and not have to witness the hellish post-attack nightmare. Unfortunately the majority of the populace would not be granted this merciful release and they would have to endure a gruelling hopeless fight for survival that would ultimately end in an agonising death from radiation sickness from exposure and lack of medical treatment / drugs and starvation from none existence of food or any system to distribute / cook it. Hmm, I think I'm going to have to change the subject.....

leedslily · Post by **leedslily** » Mon 10 Oct, 2011 2:32 pm

Thanks for posting the links to Matt Povey's blog - fascinating stuff! I was in CND in the '80s, and I think I still have a copy of 'Leeds and the Bomb' somewhere (we've just moved house and everything's still in boxes). I also went on a CND visit to the Lawnswood bunker - if I remember rightly it was part of the council's nuclear free zone policy not to maintain it - there was nothing much in there, and the roof let the rain in! Might have some photos somewhere too - again, need to unpack those boxes ...

jonleeds · Post by **jonleeds** » Mon 10 Oct, 2011 5:28 pm

Hi LeedsLily, yes if you eventually find your photos of the Leeds Regional Seat of Government Cold War Bunker that would be absolutely fascinating. I too some pictures of the exterior of the place back in 2007 on my camera phone and I posted them on Flickr but I cant for the life in me manage to link to them from this forum, I have tried all sorts and it just half posts my link ...The bunker is featured on the Subterranean Britannica website as they did a visit in 2001 and you can see there its pretty dilapidated there, ten years on I am surprised it is still standing as I would have thought they could use the lot it stands on as car parking space as its on the site of the DWP buildings at Lawnswood. Why they keep it I have no idea... What did you used to do in CND LeedsLily? I was more involved in Bradford CND and we used to have meetings up by Bradford University and organise for marches and demos in London and we even went on a mass trespass at the Menwith Hill U.S air / spy base / early warning station. The best bit was every year we were invited to Glastonbury Festival and we would take turns to man the property lock-up marquee, and for doing that we got a free ticket with 'posh' camping (Posh as in we had hot showers and meal tickets to the catering tent for three cooked meals per day!) plus 'access-to-some-areas' passes! We'd go for a full week and it turned into something of an annual holiday... Of course I was more interested in spreading the message of peace and disarmament!Johnny

dogduke · Post by **dogduke** » Wed 12 Oct, 2011 1:46 am

Going back to the origin of this thread,Robin Hood pit.In the sixties I worked for a short time at Robin Hood goods station,on the East and West Yorks Union railway as was.At that time there was a rail connection to sidings at PatrickGreen for the Ministry of Supply(?) Buffer Depot.Essential reserves of food and equipment was held at similardepots throughout the country in case of emergency.The work at Robin Hood pit could have been for the safestorage of such items,the 2 locations are close by.I would think the buffer depot would have beenon the site now used as the HGV Testing Stn.also knownas Patrick Green.

dogduke · Post by **dogduke** » Wed 12 Oct, 2011 1:56 am

History of PopleyPershore Road has been built on the site, which after the war became a buffer depot where goods were stored for use in the event of an atomic catastrophe.www.popleymatters.co.uk/History/history.htm - CachedExample of buffer depot off the net.

dogduke · Post by **dogduke** » Wed 12 Oct, 2011 2:04 am

From the Woodlesford stn web siteFreight traffic through Woodlesford probably peaked during the Second World War when large quantities of rationed foodstuffs including sugar, butter, and margerine were transferred for storage at a government "buffer" depot two miles away at Royds Green.

jonleeds · Post by **jonleeds** » Fri 14 Oct, 2011 1:25 am

Hi Dogduke, thats very interesting, I knew there had been some kind of Cold War era Food Buffer at Rothwell, Im sure there used to be some information about the place on the internet but I couldnt find it when I recently looked. Apparently when they decommissioned it back in the 1990s when they emptied the stuff stored there they found quantities of all kinds of obsolete equipment from telephones to pencils as well as food rations. I think the original Rothwell food buffer building has been demolished, but not apparently all that long ago, maybe in the last ten to fifteen years. Its strange I cant find the photo of it anywhere.

dogduke · Post by **dogduke** » Sun 16 Oct, 2011 6:44 pm

The various governments over the years have done a lot that we don't know about and probably never will.Whilst searching for buffer depots I came across this and other similar sites,how many people are aware that we made mustard gas before and during WW2 and stored it well into the 50's !http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/40382 ... N%2C+MOLD/