[IMC-bristol] Please may I post a feature?

[Ecovillage Network UK]

Hi All,

A week ago today I published the following (this version slightly updated) 
feature on Bristol Indymedia. After doubts about copyright (later proving 
unfounded) and the rule (new to me) that no person can post an article to 
the newswire then make it a feature, it was removed.

The end result of all this is that the middle column section I wrote (the 
newsy lead in) was deleted as were the links I'd prepared. Luckily it was 
still in my cache so I didn't lose that text and posted it to the UK site. 
Here it is again below.

As I understand it I now have to find a 'seconder' to actually place this 
feature in the middle column. Would anyone who approves of this being made 
a feature now please do that.

See you all at the Cube on Wednesday evening.


Tony Gosling
0117 944 6219

"The only thing necessary for evil (I refer to NATO not Ian) to triumph is 
for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke




TAGLINE
BRISTOL INDYMEDIA EXCLUSIVE

HEADLINE
New Computers for NATO bunker

FEATURE TEXT
To most of us it's just another chain link fence off the road from Bath to 
Chippenham, but investigative journalist Duncan Campbell believes the 
underground Corsham Computer Centre houses a top-secret, top-level NATO 
command post. Recent reports by anonymous contracters working deep 
underground say U.S. soldiers have just finished installing a new 
state-of-the-art U.S. computer system. And the Ministry of Defence press 
office still have the cheek to deny that there are any underground 
facilities in Corsham. So are the U.S. Department of Defence and our MoD 
hiding from Al Quaeda... or from the public who pay their wages? Phil 
Chamberlain, ex-editor of the Bath Chronicle takes a peep down this and 
some of the other nearby multi-billion pound rabbit holes.

LINKS
1. read more....
http://bristol.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=9367&group=webcast

2. The Burlington Bunker
http://www.corshamtown.co.uk/burlington.html

3. Corsham Computer Centre: Bunker Busters
http://www.truthseekers.freeserve.co.uk/truth/tr15bunkers.htm

ARTICLE TEXT
Phil Chamberlain, onetime deputy editor of the Bath Chronicle, takes a peep 
down the various military rabbit holes in the Box and Corsham area.

Bunkers under Bath
by Phil Chamberlain

For conspiracy theorists it is Britain's own Area 51. The American version 
has become such a fixture on the cult circuit that there are burger bars 
selling alien snacks and motels offering the best viewing points to see 
America's secret aircraft take off and land. But Britain's secret base has 
no such post-modernist trappings, just a few dedicated enthusiasts swapping 
tit bits on the web and a typically humdrum Ministry of Defence location.

The warren of tunnels around Corsham and Box near Bath have been home to a 
number of military bases since before the Second World War. Most utilised 
the quarries which fed the stone that made the city famous and was exported 
across the world. The mine workings link up in some cases with the military 
bases and the whole network spreads for miles with entrances dotted around 
the hills - some quote large and others no more than a rabbit hole in the 
ground.

Stop off and have a drink at The Quarryman's Arms near Box and you will be 
able to buy a map put together by University of Bath cavers which gives a 
guide to the mine workings. Be warned though that it is easy to get lost 
only yards from a tunnel entrance and much of the workings have not been 
rendered safe.

For the military, the tunnel's position was far enough away from London not 
to attract attention yet still only a few hours from the capital and with 
good rail links and the Bristol port all within easy reach. Indeed the rail 
links remain with rumours of secret sidings on the mainline route as it 
passes through various tunnels connecting military gauges with the public 
network.

The tunnels were home to a number of stores, mostly ammunition, during the 
last war. Local author Nick McCamley has charted the development of these 
underground works in his book Secret Underground Cities. And cities is an 
apt word.

The sites beneath the hills included an underground aircraft engine 
factory, operated by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. It was home to 18,000 
workers, covered three million square feet between Corsham and Box and 
contained around 60 miles of subterranean tracks.

Another, the Central Ammunition Dump at Corsham was the biggest of its kind 
in the country. One of the three parts of the CAD was actually nearer 
Bradford on Avon, and based at Monkton Farleigh Quarry. The biggest 
ammunition store in the world at the time, it covered 45 acres of 
underground space and had a maximum capacity of 120,000 tons of ammunition.

Also making up the CAD was Tunnel Quarry, a 40 acre air-conditioned 
ammunition store on the north side of the Box tunnel, while the third 
quarry, Eastlays, occupied 30 acres near Gastard, south-east of Corsham. 
The security of the sites can be gauged by the fact that many important 
works of art were shipped there for safe-keeping during the war.

Go for a drink at the Cross Guns at Avoncliffe and look at the hill above. 
During the war, inside that hill, sat the Crown Jewels, the Elgin Marbles 
and various other treasures from London museums.

The military works provided employment for thousands of local people 
before, during and after the war. Little was officially known about them 
because, in that typically reserved British way, the sites were secret.
Local gossip certainly gave clues to the scale of the operations and many 
people have their own urban myths about the tunnels. One is that all the 
cellars under Bath's central Milsom Street link up and a direct route - 
past the former Admiralty headquarters in the city - went straight to Box.

But apart from tall tales told in pubs the sites remained secure - a few 
air vents and vehicle entrances the only outward sign of their existence. 
There was a price to be paid for some of those workers who toiled 
underground. Asbestos was used to line the walls of the undergrouns 
offices. An inquest held in 1999 into the death of 81-year-old Ada Harding 
from Corsham found she had died from a cancer caused by inhaling the deadly 
fibres. Coroner's officer Douglas Hills told the inquest: 'The entire 
complex was piped, the piping neing lagged with asbestos. Very large 
quantities of blue asbestos sheeting were used.'

Mrs Harding's daughters both worked for the MoD in their underground 
facilities. One, Carol Boon, said: 'People liked working underground and 
they had all the facilities there. They really enjoyed it.'

One of the more astounding secrets the government kept hidden was that one 
part of the network was identified as a Cold War government bolt hole in 
case the bomb ever dropped.

Called Burlington, the bunker was equipped to house 5,000 people and had a 
hospital, bakery and laundry. It replicated Whitehall down to a version of 
the famous Red Lion pub which sits on the corner of Parliament Square in 
London. That bunker was finally decommissioned in 1989 and various other 
sections are gradually being sold off of retired.

Indeed a science park is planned for one above-ground section at Rudloe and 
Spring Quarry is being turned into a film studio. Other parts are used as 
warehouses for storing senstive items in the temperature-controlled vaults 
by a private company. But parts of the rest of the site remain in 
government hands. It is this part, and specifically the Corsham Computer 
Centre (CCC) near the former RAF Rudloe Manor base, that has attracted 
attention from conspiracy theory minded investigators.

On the one hand you have mainstream groups interested in mapping and 
documenting the military history of Britain and they work with the tacit 
approval of official agencies. Then there are the more esoteric groups 
which believe much remains hidden and still active beneath the hills.

The RAF's involvement, it used to have signal facilities at Rudloe, has led 
to suggestions that it was Britain's UFO headquarters and that the staff 
based at Rudloe were on alien-watch.

Meanwhile investigative journalist Duncan Campbell paid a visit to the CCC 
which be believes is a secretly-funded NATO nuclear command centre. Less a 
base for friends from outer-space more your old-fashioned 'black' project - 
built away from the prying eyes of Parliament and one of a number of Cold 
War nerve centres.

Various enthusiasts have made life less humdrum for the military police at 
the CCC by attempting to get into the base which is officially no more 
interesting than its name.

Much of what remains underground is, pardon the pun, buried from official 
scrutiny and since Campbell's original claims there has been little hard 
evidence to show that anything too elaborate is going on. But then it took 
decades before anyone found out about Burlington. And there are still 
plenty of rumours being told at the pubs around these Wiltshire hills.

Bunker busters - http://www.truthseekers.freeserve.co.uk/truth/tr15bunkers.htm
Secret Underground Cities, Nick McCamley 
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mccamley/
Take an Underground Tour of Monkton Farleigh 
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mccamley/dis20no1.htm
Truthseekers guide to RAF Rudloe Manor 
http://www.truthseekers.freeserve.co.uk/index2.htm
Concise History of Bath Stone Quarries in the Corsham area 
http://www.stonequarries.freeserve.co.uk/
Corsham - the emergency government war headquarters 
http://mysite.freeserve.com/nuclear_bunkers/corsham.html






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