A COUPLE of weeks ago, we were intrigued to learn of an underground bunker that was sunk in Grinton, in Swaledale, in 1960, so that volunteers of the Royal Observer Corps (ROC) could monitor any nuclear attacks, and appealed for more information.

“Yes, the Grinton bunker does still exist – and in extraordinarily good condition too,” responded David Butterworth, chief executive of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority. “It’s on private land in Grinton so isn’t accessible, but I organised a visit last year with the authority’s archaeologist, Robert White.

“There are other ROC bunkers in the area – most without access and none in as good a condition as this.”

The ROC was initially formed to observe aircraft, but in 1955 it was given the responsibility of detecting nuclear explosions, and across the country, 1,563 re-enforced concrete bunkers were sunk for them to work in.

Edward Brown of Low Row was a member of the Grinton ROC from 1953 to 1970. He said: “You went vertically down 14ft from the hatch to where there was a little space at the bottom for a toilet, and then there was a long room, about 20ft by 9ft.”

In there, the ROC volunteers did their exercises in preparation for nuclear war. They had equipment which informed them of the local situation which they then relayed to headquarters.

At the hatch there was the Ground Zero Indicator. “It was a big pan with photographic paper inside it. The lid of the pan had four concave surfaces each with a pinhole in it so if you had a nuclear burst, the flash would go through the pinhole and produce a mark on the photographic paper.” The positioning of the mark on the paper, when read in conjunction with details from the Bomb Pressure Indicator, would show where the bomb had dropped.

“We also had a personal dosimeter, to tell us how much radiation we had absorbed,” said Mr Brown.

The Grinton bunker, which was sunk in a glacial mound on the banks of the Swale, was part of a cluster of bunkers that worked together to build a complete picture of the extent of fall-out. The other bunkers were near Richmond, Leyburn, Aysgarth, Hawes, Kirkby Stephen and Cotherstone – “that one was on the moor towards Bowes,” said Mr Brown, “a pretty desolate place.”

Jon Smith, from the Barningham Local History Group, reports that there’s a bunker on Eggmartin Hill, near his village on the edge of Teesdale.

“At least, it was there some ten years or so ago when I wandered across the fields to explore it,” he said. “It was disappointing: just an underground chamber, 12ft or so beneath the surface, with a laddered shaft, empty but for a lot of festering rainwater and one or two small mammalian bodies that had tumbled down and drowned.

“There were no rusting rifles, no Enigma-ish codebooks, not even a tatty poster warning that careless talk cost lives.”

Are there any other ROC bunkers remaining that we should know about? Please call Chris Lloyd on 01325-505062 or email chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk.

Many thanks to everyone who has spotted last week's car and bus in Stokesley Market Place. More next week.