Cold War-Era Bunker Hits the Market in UK

It's a unique historical English property that could be perfect for a doomsday prepper. In fact, it was built to survive a nuclear blast. A Cold War-era bunker is going up for auction later this month in the Bristol area in western England with a low starting bid of 20,000 pounds, around $26,740.

• The entrance sits amid what looks like blackberry brambles on a hillside in the village of Hallen, just north of Bristol, overlooking farm fields and the mouth of the River Severn. But don't expect a view from the underground chamber. The bunker is one of about 1,500 shelters built across the UK for the Royal Observer Corps, a civil defense organization, to safely monitor blast waves and fallout from nuclear attacks that never came, the AP reports.

• Most now sit empty, though they occasionally come up for resale since they were decommissioned and sold to the public in the 1990s. Last year, a bunker listed for a minimum of $20,000 sold at auction for $64,000 in Yorkshire Dales National Park in northern England. The buyers later submitted plans to turn it into a tourist attraction.
• From the outside, the relics are more eyesore than architectural wonder—just a couple steps and a block of concrete with a chain securing the entrance. On the inside, there's also not much to look at.

• A floor plan shows Room One—the only room—and describes it as a "discreetly integrated underground room, perfect as a private wine cellar, safe room, or secure utility area." It's a spartan space of 128 square feet with peeling paint, a stained floor, some shelving, a small desk-like surface against the wall, two plastic chairs, and a single metal bed frame with no mattress.
• There's a tiny hallway where a ladder descends from the hatch above and a tiny space marked as a water closet that photos reveal to contain a crude chemical toilet.
• The property last sold in 1995 for $127,000, but that included the land where the owner lives, said Sophie Thorne, who is coordinating the Sept. 25 auction. The bunker is being divided from the larger property and will be sold separately. The owner, who is staying put, has never had to hunker down in the bunker. "It's just kind of part of the property that she bought," Thorne says. "She had no particular need for it, which is good."