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Comment by arethuza | Hacker News Reader

One thing to note is that the UK had a huge number (over 1500) small underground observation posts operated by the Royal Observer Corps - in the case of war these were to monitor nuclear explosions and fall-out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Observer_Corps_Monitorin...

This short film from 1971 that includes scenes filmed in observation posts and a central bunker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3y0WmONP4E

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http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/s/skendleby/ was turned into a datacentre now run by GCI but previously known as SmartBunker.

Circa 10 years ago I was involved in a project helping transition it from 80s phone exchange into a modern facility built to a good spec. Getting connectivity out there was painful and expensive; at one point it was backhauled wirelessly to Skegness!

Barnton Quarry bunker in Edinburgh (about 4 km west of where I live) is being renovated and will hopefully be open soon:

http://www.secretscotland.org.uk/index.php/Secrets/BarntonQu...

This bunker would have been the Regional Seat of Government for Scotland:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Seat_of_Government

Given that its location and purpose wasn't a secret I imagine it would have been blown to bits in any conflict.

I was under the impression that the RSGs were secret until 1963 when an anti nuke campaign group exposed them?

But then, hey, Britain. We have a load of secrets that aren't technically secret but we'd rather you didn't know and would take a dim view of you trying to find out. Especially true during the Cold War (see e.g. Backbone, etc).

Good point - I'm not sure when Barnton stopped being the RSG - I had assumed it was well after '63.

There was a new RSG type bunker at Cultybraggan near Comrie but, with impeccable timing, that wasn't completed until 1990!

Outside of Houston, Texas, this former private bunker (http://www.houstonbunker.com/about/) was turned into a secure data warehouse. I believe Continental Airlines used to use it for their data.

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