Swanky nuclear bunker sells for twice its estimate at auction

A unique post-war nuclear bunker near Peak Dale has sold for £36,000 at auction – twice its original estimate.

61 bidders pushed the price of the Royal Observer Corps (ROC) hideaway well beyond the £15,000-£20,000 expectation of auctioneers, SDL Property Auctions. 

It is one of 1,500 secret nuclear monitoring posts dotted around the country, which were used to accommodate up to three people for a fortnight at a time during the Cold War. 

If nuclear war had broken out, it would have been up to ROC officers to report radiation measurements from their subterranean dens. 

Officially known as the Buxton ROC Post, the bunker just off Waterswallows Road opened in 1959 before being sold off with the rest of the surviving examples in 1991. 

Most of them were bought by telecoms companies and now have mobile phone masts attached. However, the one in Peak Dale found its way into private hands, and has been kitted out with a vintage red hotline phone, walls covered in velvet drapes, a chemical toilet, a log burner, and even a framed picture of a nuclear explosion.

The boujee bijou bunker is one of several built in the area.  

The most famous is in the car park of the Hare & Hounds pub on Werneth Low in Hyde, and while the one in a field off Manor Park Road in Glossop survives in a state of disrepair, the Chinley and Hope ROC posts were demolished after being decommissioned in 1968.