Urban explorers find secret rave in abandoned nuclear war bunker

Urban explorers found a rave underway in a nuclear bunker designed to keep regional government functioning during World War Three.  

The visitors walked into the sunken shelter, where a huge Cold War-era map still adorns a wall, to find the party getting underway.

House music was pumping out and the revellers had added disco lighting to the Brislington War Room, a Grade II-listed site in Bristol. 

The ExploreMore group were welcomed in by the temporary occupants as DJs played by speaker stacks in the facility’s map room.

The ‘urbex’ explorers were able to stroll around the historic shelter, a rare example of early civic nuclear planning, as the party took place. 

A member of ExploreMore who gave his name as Dom told Metro.co.uk that his group turned up at the site on Saturday night to find people arriving with bags and camping gear.  

‘They allowed us entry to the site with their own key to the gate,’ he said.

‘Walking through the site they told us they hold regular events all over but it’s all hush hush, invite only. 

‘We arrived at a huge metal door and when it opened smoke plumed out and we could hear the pounding from the speakers.

‘They were all really friendly and didn’t mind us taking photos The bunker was in pretty good condition as they had cleared rooms for the rave, using squeegees to provide safe and dry walkways.’ 

Also known as the Bristol War Room, the facility in Flowers Hill was built in 1953 to ‘co-ordinate civil defence in the event of an atomic attack’ and protect regional government, according to Historic England.

Shielded by reinforced concrete, the long-abandoned two-storey unit contains items which have lain untouched for decades. The ravers had added their own touch by installing fairy lights above a bank of desks intended for switchboard or teleprinter operators.  

Fruit juice and cleaning products dating back to the Cold War era still adorned a shelf, with a communication pad open on a page.  

The explorers also found a sign pointing the way for police, fire, engineers, operations, information and signals personnel.

Above it, the ravers had added a notice directing people to the music.

In a plant room, a sign on a door reads ‘tank room no admittance’. 

An IT upgrade on early Cold War technology involving laptops and speaker stacks had taken place in the focal map room, where a huge chart of the south west regions still covers the wall. 

Dom said: ‘Original features were left alone like the line of tables where call handlers and telecoms would have been positioned and the maps still hung on the walls. They had fairy lights hung around the bunker for a more trance-like vibe but they had managed to get the mains working again too so all the original lights were on as well.’ 

The shelter, which marks the importance once assigned to protecting civil functions in the event of a nuclear attack, is known as the war rooms bunker in the urban exploration scene.

Historic England describes the two-storey, semi-sunken facility as ‘a rare survival of a purpose built war room’.

The building is said to ‘express through its monumental and robust form the threat posed by the atomic bomb and the necessary measures to protect its occupants from the effects of nuclear attack’.  

In the event of war, the regional government occupants would have been responsible for Home Defence Region 7, which covered Cornwall, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire.  

In the early 60s, the shelter was replaced by regional seats of government buildings which were more resilient to the hydrogen bomb.

The Home Office rented the facility to the former Avon County Council, who used it for their county borough control until 1981. The building is now part of a site which has been purchased by Bellway Homes in a deal with property investment and development firm Telereal Trillium.  

Outline planning permission was granted last year to redevelop the site with 160 homes and the reopening of the war room for community or commercial use. In May, BristolWorld reported Bellway as saying that work will start next year on the redevelopment. 

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