UK Ministry of Defence, A garden gnome stands guard over the underground bunker that would have housed the British government if a nuclear war had broken out 40 years ago.
The gnome performs his lonely duty outside one of the entrances to the Corsham Tunnels, a vast complex of mine workings beneath the Defence Communication Services Agency's headquarters in Wiltshire.
The tunnels and the underground infrastructure capable of running a medium-sized town, are anachronisms now, which is why the MOD is considering private sector initiatives and bids that might give the complex a new lease of life.
But back in the 1950s and '60s providing a safe alternative home for the Cabinet and thousands of officials was a deadly serious affair.
“The Mine” is a 240-acre network of rooms, corridors and roadways. Under Operation Turnstile, the government would have decamped here as war loomed.
Turnstile foresaw 4,000 people living and working beneath the Cotswolds for up to 90 days, while above ground the civilian population weathered the fallout and destruction as best it could.
DCSA's Andy Quinn has been responsible for the facility
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