Monday 25 April 2011

Stoke Newington Bunker


A couple of weeks ago I was attending a wedding at Stoke Newington Town Hall - as we were not immediate family we were requested to go to the rear of the building to get to the balcony of the main hall where the wedding was to take place. While we were waiting for the back door to be unlocked I took the opportunity to photograph the entrance to the bunker beneath the building, now used as a CCTV and ' emergency planning' centre. For more information see this from Subterranea Britannica, my own Subterranean City and Iain Sinclair's Hackney, That Rose Red Empire. Oh, and I also took some pictures of the wedding.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

If you're interested I can s=hed some light on it - there are two bunkers. One is the 1952 built Cold War bunker, which consists of about 7 or 8 rooms underground including a small dormitory, kitchen, generator room, comms room and two command/control rooms with a spine corridor. It was, unfortunately, left insecure by some painters who used it as a store some years ago, a family of foxes got in and contaminated it then died down there. A great shame, as it was a well preserved Cold Ward bunker until then. The other one under the Town Hall is still in use as a combined CCTV Centre / Emergency Planning Control Centre ? Wardens patrol base.
Hope that helps.
Andy.

Unknown said...

Oh, and by the way, the oft quoted 'Rose Red Empire' segments about it are factually wrong in some respects, I have no idea where he got the bit about the library budget being cut to pay for it, the two services are in different directorates.

Unknown said...

Oh, and by the way, the oft quoted 'Rose Red Empire' segments about it are factually wrong in some respects, I have no idea where he got the bit about the library budget being cut to pay for it, the two services are in different directorates.

Unknown said...

If you're interested I can s=hed some light on it - there are two bunkers. One is the 1952 built Cold War bunker, which consists of about 7 or 8 rooms underground including a small dormitory, kitchen, generator room, comms room and two command/control rooms with a spine corridor. It was, unfortunately, left insecure by some painters who used it as a store some years ago, a family of foxes got in and contaminated it then died down there. A great shame, as it was a well preserved Cold Ward bunker until then. The other one under the Town Hall is still in use as a combined CCTV Centre / Emergency Planning Control Centre ? Wardens patrol base.
Hope that helps.
Andy.