Paddock secret underground Bunker Part 1

Paddock is the codeword for an alternative Cabinet War Room bunker for Winston Churchill's World War II government located in Dollis Hill, North West London under the Post Office Research Station. It was constructed in 1939 but only rarely used during the war, with only two meetings of the War Cabinet being held there. It was abandoned in 1944.

Paddock has had various, intermittent uses since (including a brief period where what is thought to be the map room was used as a Post Office social club) but otherwise as of 2007, the site remains largely disused as it was when it was decommissioned at the end of World War II.

Paddock was built at the start of the 2nd World War below the Post Office Research Station in Dollis Hill. The purpose of the two level citadel was to act as a standby to the Cabinet War Rooms in Whitehall. The bunker became operational in 1940 with the War Cabinet meeting there on 3rd October.

Churchill did not like the new bunker and by the autumn of 1943 the standby cabinet war rooms were relocated to the North Rotunda in Marsham Street, close to Whitehall; Paddock was abandoned the following year.

During the cold war, Paddock was suggested as a replacement for the North London Group War Room at Partingdale Lane, Mill Hill but this was rejected by the GLC. It was also, along with Station Z at Harrow, suggested as the Main Control Centre for the whole of London with the 4 (later 5) Group Controls reporting to it. The idea of 1 central control was never adopted and the upper floor at Paddock was relegated to a Post Office social club.

Following closure of Post Office Research Station, in the mid 1990's the site was sold to a property developer who converted the Research Station into luxury flats with a new housing estate on the rest of the site. The single storey surface building above Paddock was demolished but the citadel, which has local authority listing was untouched and two access points were retained one an unobtrusive steel door in a wall between two houses and the other a brick blockhouse beside the road which also houses a small electricity sub station. The site has now been handed over to a housing association.

Behind the southern entrance door door is a narrow spiral staircase that descends thirty feet to the upper level of the two level citadel. Signs on the wall indicate this is Floor 27 (the lower level being Floor 28) which seems strange as there were certainly never 26 floors above it. At the bottom of the stairway is some ventilation plant with the air intake trunking and some electrical switchgear.

Category:

Science & Technology

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[ColdWarSecret]

bella's lullaby - sound track.

[whogotdubs]

Really interesting video. Would like to know the music used also?