Shropshire Star

Ludlow nuclear bunker mystery continues

Like a Cold War mystery that refuses to unravel, the history of Ludlow's nuclear bunker continues to baffle people.

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The existence of a nuclear bunker on the site off Corve Street, which was once the town home of Shropshire Council and Ludlow Town Council, has been raised as plans have been submitted to demolish the offices to make way for 25 new homes.

The bunker dates to the time when tensions were high between the Soviet Union and the West, with the threat of nuclear war high in the consciousness of authorities in the UK.

Ironically, as the construction was completed, the Cold War thawed. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev struck up a working relationship and the seeds were sown for the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Soviet Union's last leader Mikhail Gorbachev with then-president of the United States Ronald Reagan

Details today emerged from locals who have visited what they were told was an official fall-out shelter at the former Stone House council offices. The site includes modern offices built in the 1980s, which are to be knocked down, and the grade II listed Stone House building itself, which is now a private residence.

In 2014, members of Ludlow Civic Society were granted permission to see what was clearly a military-spec bunker, member Michael Wake said.

He added: "It was a reinforced area, very well built, with a very strong reinforced door. It was at the rear of the site, much further in than the old Stone House building at the top end – we went in via the office building itself.

"There's nothing much left of what was there now. The machinery, the heating system and where the air would be filtered through has all been taken out. It was just an empty room."

He said the shelter was a point along a network of emergency pipes and cables buried under the A49 from Shrewsbury to Hereford.

John Rickett, 88, a former Shropshire Star reporter, said he saw the bunker nearly 30 years ago, when the site would have been the headquarters of South Shropshire District Council.

He says what he was shown was essentially a basement under the old Stone House building itself. "It hadn't been re-inforced with concrete, the roof was just the floorboards above, and ceiling plaster," he said.

"There were Army-type tables, folding chairs, one telephone and one cupboard with a tall empty space where you could call through directly to the basement."

Developer Purcell, which has submitted housing plans for the site, has not said how the bunker fits in with its housing plans. Ludlow North councillor Andy Boddington has asked for a site visit in February to record the bunker for posterity before it is built on.

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