Nick Catford
Burlington; The Central Government War Headquarters at Corsham
Folly Books; 2012
This is a large, coffee table-sized book full of photographs and maps of the now decommissioned and abandoned government bunker under north Wiltshire.
Nick Catford is one of the country’s most expert and specialist historians and investigators of underground Britain, and especially wartime/military and railway infrastructure, with several books to his credit. He is also an excellent photographer and a leading light in Subterranea Britannica (SubBrit). Which means he gets access to places most people wouldn’t and he’s absolutely the right man to write this book.
The first almost 50 pages provide a blow-by-blow history of the Corsham bunker from the mid-1930s through to it’s demise some 10 or so years ago, but majoring on its Cold War incarnations since the mid-1950s. The reminder of the 215 pages are filled with glossy photographs and charts of the layout of the various areas of the bunker, showing how each area would have been allocated and the now abandoned state of the site — complete with stored hardware, furniture, etc.

The photographs give a good idea of the decay that sets in very quickly when a site like this is abandoned. As yet apparently no roof-falls (at least not in the bunker area), but lots of water seepage and thus decaying wood and metal. Hundreds of new, but abandoned, chairs, blankets, packs of copy paper, telex machines, generators, telecoms infrastructure, catering equipment — it’s all there! It just beggars belief that all this can just be abandoned; one would think that at least the metal (and there must be hundreds of tons of it) could be recovered and sold off for scrap and recycling.

It’s the sheer scale of the enterprise, the government’s inability to organise its way out of a paper bag (certainly with any speed) and the scale of waste which for me makes this book so interesting. Plus the horrendous logistics of setting up the whole outfit, keeping it secret (the code name seems to have been changed every 2-3 years!) and maintaining it in a state of readiness. It all just boggles the mind.
If you are interested in what we get up to underground, things governmental and military or the general disorganisation of the way government goes about planning and implementing projects, you’ll likely find this book fascinating. Or you might just want to have your mind blown! If none of those floats your boat then basically, don’t bother.
Overall Rating: ★★★★☆