Corsham was PM’s retreat

From the The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald, first published Thursday 5th Jan 2006.

PRIME Minister Harold Wilson planned to survive a nuclear war by taking refuse in a bunker under Corsham.

The Labour PM, who was in power between the mid 1960s and early 70s, his cabinet and top civil servants would have fled to Burlington Bunker.

The details have emerged in a top-secret cabinet paper from 1975, which was declassified this week and released by the National Archives.

Until recently the Government refused to admit the 240-acre bunker, located at the Spring Quarry complex 120ft under Box Hill, even existed.

It was designed in the 1950s to accommodate 5,000 civil servants and top politicians for a year if nuclear war ever broke out.

The bunker even had its own pub a replica of the Whitehall tavern the Red Lion and broadcasting studio.

Information about the bunker was officially made public last year when it was decommissioned.

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