A New Future for a Cold War Bunker at Gravesend?
Sites of the Cold War have now become archaeology. Indeed, the Civil Defence Control Centre at Woodlands Park, Gravesend, has not only become the subject of a current research project but also a bid to restore it for public access.
The Control Centre is both of local historical interest and regional importance. It is a significant heritage resource that deserves retention and preservation. It may also merit statutory protection. The Centre was built in 1954 as a command post from which it was hoped that the local Civil Defence organization would be able to coordinate rescue and emergency services in the event of damage or radiation in the Gravesham area resulting from a strike by atomic or nuclear weapons on the United Kingdom. It was one of a series of measures taken nationally to ameliorate the worst effects on the population and infrastructures of towns and communities from this form of attack.
The telephone message room at the Civil Defence Control Centre.
The Centre consists of a suite of 13 protected underground rooms. It is reached from the surface by a concrete staircase, and there is a second staircase that formed an emergency exit. The accommodation contains its air ventilating plant, some of its original fixed furniture such as message booths, an internal office sub-division, and toilet fittings. One of the two control rooms retains a blackboard marked with information from the last civil defense exercise carried out at the Centre. Moreover, importantly and remarkably, the original documentation for the Centre survives.
With the reduction of the civil defense organization from the late 1960s, the Control Centre was discontinued, its movable furniture and equipment removed, and it became used as a document store in the mid-1970s.
Locked and protected during its use as a document store by Kent County Council and Gravesham Borough Council, its main features were preserved. More than one visitor has noted its special ambiance and has described it as a 'time capsule'.
The site is the only Civil Defense Control Centre at present known to be the subject of a proposal for public access. But there is clearly much public interest in experiencing this kind of heritage, as evidenced in the positive visitor response to the opening of a Cold War Regional Seat of Government in Scotland and the limited opening of another RSG at Kelvedon Hatch in Essex.
The Centre is an evocative environment in which to present and interpret to visitors the meaning of the Cold War and to communicate an understanding of the complexity and nature of the civil and military measures taken against the possibility of nuclear attack and the practical problems these entailed. The site is also favorably located within an existing public park. The writer is currently preparing a feasibility study of the possibilities.
The proposals will envisage a presentation that combines partial refurbishing in the manner of the Cabinet War Rooms in London or the Hell Fire Corner exhibit in Dover, with graphics and text displays and relevant video footage. A high priority will be placed on relating the presentation to the national history curriculum and providing facilities for schools and colleges. This project is at the leading edge of heritage preservation, and it is hoped that the feasibility study will be favorably received and that the proposals can go forward. The study envisages undertaking the project with the use of volunteers. This approach has worked well at New Tavern Fort, also in Gravesend, for over 20 years.
Victor T. C. Smith,
Project Director.
