Ming the Mechanic:
Buy an underground city
The NewsLog of Flemming Funch
 Buy an underground city2005-11-01 15:52
9 comments
by Flemming Funch

A previously secret underground installation is for sale in England.
WELCOME to Cold War City (population: 4). It covers 240 acres and has 60 miles of roads and its own railway station. It even includes a pub called the Rose and Crown.

The most underpopulated town in Britain is being put on the market. But there will be no estate agent’s blurb extolling the marvellous views of the town for sale: true, it has a Wiltshire address, but it is 120ft underground.

The subterranean complex that was built in the 1950s to house the Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan’s cabinet and 4,000 civil servants in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack is being thrown open to commercial use. Just four maintenance men are left.

Property developers looking for the ultimate place to get away from it all need not apply. The site has a notional value of £5m but there is a catch. It is available only as part of a private finance initiative that involves investing in the military base on the surface above.

I don't have 5 million pounds to spare, but I'd really like an underground city.


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9 comments

1 Nov 2005 @ 19:36 by bushman : Hmm
Would make a good place for NCN base of operations, some slight modifications for communications. We could be the men/women in white, lol. Ok, maybe, men/women in grey, lol. An accual test bed and working physical model of NCN. We could add a hydroponics section, and for the meat eaters, we can just geneticly grow meat, no animals to tend and kill, we just grow the meat cells on a stick or something. lol. It's only 5 million euros? Heck with another 5m we could install a super computer and make all the mods, 10 million bucks? Thats pocket change, lol. But anyway, don't forget me if someone wants to buy it for us. :}  

1 Nov 2005 @ 21:47 by ming : Underground Base
Hey, sounds like a plan. Let's have a beer at the Rose and Crown and discuss it.  

2 Nov 2005 @ 01:29 by taranga @217.158.116.99 : farming
With that sort acreage you could have one hell of a mushroom farm and supply most of the EU - with no risk of bird flu! or may be make a killing by taking all that nuclear waste no one knows what to do with.  

2 Nov 2005 @ 14:30 by rayon : You know architecture
to qualify really does require some input of beautification - underground caverns can be done by engineers and a logistics manual. Totally functional, like the garden shed, no architect, not exciting.  

2 Nov 2005 @ 15:11 by rayon : Whereas military archtiecture
especially the historical, Georgian, does have appeal going beyond its function content.  

2 Nov 2005 @ 15:41 by rayon : Main problem with tunnels,
no landscape factor. Another vital component, genius loci, the special spot on the ground which seems to offer more than others. I believe a good building = landscape and vice versa, but actually Man belongs to the equation as well, and this is the fundamental tripartite organisational principle of existence. We take Wilderness and turn it into Arcadia, just with the placement of a building, if we are lucky . . .  

2 Nov 2005 @ 23:36 by bushman : lol
Arrr there will be no plundein Arrrr, lol. Accually probably looks pretty cool down there as is, Ive checked out millitary tunneling machines, all the ones that the USA uses bore a hole and pour the floor at the same time at 14ft diamiter, and they can overlap the bore in 3 dimentions so would be easy to cut a large space out and still leave pillars for suport, what this place is , is a bunker that holds 4000 people comfortably, its a city, so it has to be pretty functional probably lined with reinforced concreet and flying butresses and gusseted collums. But is only a guess, Id like to see some pics of it before I buy. I bet I could landscape a 14ft tunnel easy, with timed lighting to mimic the seasons, tempture as well for dwarf fruit trees, they need to get cold in winter so would have to deal with that, but could be done with minimal effort. Deffinetly would have a huge solar/wind set up on the surface to be able to totaly run the city without haveing to pay for power to run it, guess it depends where they accualy built it, and if we could drill down and hit some permanetly hot rock and run the whole thing on geothermal. I would bet the rail system is all electric, and the fact that it needs a rail system, we may not be grasping this cities size. I mean the city of So Pasadena is 3.5sq miles, and there isnt 60 miles of roads in it, but did at one time have a rail system. The place for sale has to be either really big, or is made up of spread out caverns. Of course they are probably talking golf cart roads as well. Id sure like to see it.  

3 Nov 2005 @ 13:10 by rayon : Well thats sorted then, seeing
as I am 500 yards from this site, the nearest pub is the Red Lion in Crown Passage, opposite Palace of St James, when are you all going to be over? Oh yes, they do not mention the lake outside to the North West of the site which extends all the way through St James Park up to Hyde Park and along the Serpentine, that's alot a lake.  

5 Nov 2005 @ 11:46 by taranga @217.158.116.142 : underground adventures
Here is more detail of what it is like - seems it wash mainly an old ammo store

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/the_exchange/connect/bunker.shtml  

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