RAF Skendleby near Skegness.  Date of visit 18th November 2000

RAF Skendleby was originally built in 1941 as a Chain Home Low radar station and was fitted with a type 54 radar in 1943.  In the early 1950's the bunker as we see it today was built.  It was used as ground controlled intercept station as part of the ROTOR project.  Originally the bunker had two floors underground connected to a bungalow guardhouse by a curving tunnel which is roughly 100 yards long.  The bunker later became SRHQ31 covering Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.  In the 1980's the bunker was taken over by the Home Office and was totally modernised to become RGHQ 3.1.  An additional floor was added by using the cable duct space under the false floor of the old first floor provision was made to accommodate 130 people.  This results in the middle floor of the bunker having a rather low ceiling.  The bunker was bought by its present owner in 1995.

Internally the bunker is in excellent condition.  Power is still connected and most of the plant still works.  When the Home Office moved out they totally stripped the bunker except for the kitchens, plant rooms cabling etc.  There are a few damp spots but generally the whole building looks like it was working up till a few weeks ago.  Everything is clean, all the lights work and while we were there the owner ran all four of the air conditioning systems which worked perfectly.  The heating was turned off on the day the bunker was sold and hasn't been on since.  The owner told me that it took about six months for the temperature inside the bunker to drop to its present level of around 18 degrees.  All the internal doors still retain their original name plates.  Throughout the bunker you can see evidence of where alterations have been made over the years.  

To give you a bit more info about the bunker Nick Catford has allowed me to include his site report here.

Some facts and figures:

Over 21,000 square feet of floor space

Own water bore hole

12,000 mains water storage tank

Two as new diesel generators with enough fuel to last for three months continuous use.

The rear of the bungalow showing the blast door which provides access for heavy plant to be lifted in and out.  On the other side of the door is a a five ton electric hoist which still works.  The hand rail could be removed when required.  

Just to the left of the blue car is the diesel tank inlet.  There are two tanks, each with a capacity of 38070 litres.  Inside the bunker are electric fuel pumps and also emergency hand pumps.