It's Battle of Britain Day today so this "Tale From Watnall Hall" looks at the village's WW2 legacy focussing on the RAF's top secret wartime bunkers. The two main bunkers under Watnall are still there as you can see from the aerial shot and the pictures.
- The Operations Room is 60 feet below the HGV Testing Centre but is completely flooded out.
- The Filter Block is in the old railway cutting by RBM Motors and, as seen on Channel 4's "Restoration Man", was bought privately and the earth banking that once covered it removed by excavator exposing the underlying brick and concrete structure.
"The underground operations block itself was indeed sixty feet below ground, and housed the Group Operations Room complete with a mammoth plotting table, operational and administrative teleprinters which were a vital main link in the Defence Teleprinter Network, and a very large telephone exchange, in addition to hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of GPO equipment. The GPO also manned the place for twenty-four hours a day."
"This [Filter] Block housed equally costly and secret equipment, and was designed to act as a point where all the classified information received from the various Radar and Ground Control Interception stations could be ‘filtered’ before being passed on to the Operations Room. Both blocks were manned throughout the twenty-four hours, and it was a common sight to see the night watch marching down the main road at Watnall on their way to the Filter Block with an airman or airwoman walking in front and at the rear of the column with a lantern."
Mr. Long also got the phone bill for RAF Watnall...
Watnall was a key link in the RAF's air defence early warning system and so had a huge and very expensive telephone system connecting it to other underground bunkers around the country. I've recently seen a very interesting letter from a Mr. Long who served as the Unit Signals Warrant Officer at RAF Watnall on three separate tours of duty during WW2. He explains how it all worked...
"The underground operations block itself was indeed sixty feet below ground, and housed the Group Operations Room complete with a mammoth plotting table, operational and administrative teleprinters which were a vital main link in the Defence Teleprinter Network, and a very large telephone exchange, in addition to hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of GPO equipment. The GPO also manned the place for twenty-four hours a day."
The Operations Room displayed various pieces of information in different ways, which the controller would then use in order to make his important decisions. The location of both enemy and friendly aircraft formations was displayed using numbered blocks on the map table. The current activities of the Group's squadrons e.g. "At Standby", "Enemy Sighted", "Ordered to Land", etc. were displayed on a "tote" board using a series of lights. Current weather conditions at the Group's sector stations were indicated with a system of coloured discs. And the passage of time was tracked using a coordinated system of clock and coloured indicators.
At every radar station on the east coast, a radar operator would sit in front of their radar screen wearing a headset and mouthpiece which was constantly connected by phone to the Filter Block at Watnall and she would be reporting every movement that she saw on the screen using a special formula of words and symbols.
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| Artist's impression of the Operations Room like at RAF Watnall. The girls at Watnall called their glass-covered balcony the "goldfish bowl" |
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| The actual Watnall Ops Room drawn by WAAF Mary Harrison |
"This [Filter] Block housed equally costly and secret equipment, and was designed to act as a point where all the classified information received from the various Radar and Ground Control Interception stations could be ‘filtered’ before being passed on to the Operations Room. Both blocks were manned throughout the twenty-four hours, and it was a common sight to see the night watch marching down the main road at Watnall on their way to the Filter Block with an airman or airwoman walking in front and at the rear of the column with a lantern."
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| WAAF girls by Notts artist Laura Knight |
"Perhaps it will give you some idea of the vast cable and telephone network when I relate that whilst serving at Watnall after the war, I had to certify the half-yearly Telephone and Cable account, and it was never less than £500,000. That was in the mid-fifties when a pound was a pound!" In today's money that is £22 million every 6 months.
For more stories about RAF Watnall's role in the war and the Battle of Britain, what the bunkers looked like back in the day and the girls that worked there (including the future heiress of Watnall Hall, Miss Elma Rolleston) you can read my main article on the Tales From Watnall Hall page here... https://watnallhall.blogspot.com/2023/08/when-future-heiress-of-watnall-hall.html
Please note that this former RAF facility is on private property and is not open, or accessible to the public; it is also sealed off from the outside world by locked steel doors. A similar facility exists at Uxbridge that served Fighter Command 11 Group, which is restored to its WW2 condition and is open to the public.
A very interesting update from a local Facebook group...
"Steve Lacey - My dad (Bill Lacey) was the first manager of Watnall testing station. In the '76 heat wave he took me down as it had dried out. When originally built the sump of the underground building contained a Coventry climax pump engine, this was removed when the ops room was decommissioned. When we went down (my dad was keyholder) the plotting table was still there although very rotten. In the late 70's a ministry bod went to see my dad at the station and said they intended to demolish the bomb resistant cap. My dad said 'good luck with that it's 3' thick ferro concrete you'd blow out all the windows in Watnall to do that'. They ignored him and bought in an explosives expert who said the same; how my old man laughed! It's still there and it's about 30' down to the ops room floor."
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| Filter Room mid 1980s |
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| Filter Room cleaned up c.2014 |
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| Filter Room ready to live in 2015 |
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| Filter Block exposed with window holes |
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| 2014 Filter Block excavated |
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| Operations Room entrance corridor showing cable hangers |
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| Operations Room looking down from the entrance |
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| Operations Room entrance |
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| Operations Room stairs with cable hangers |
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| Operations Room looking back to entrance |
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| Operations Room concrete issues by door |
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| Operations Room mid level c.35-40 feet below ground |
The last picture shows the flooded mid level. Lower level is submerged. A Radio Nottingham reporter Andy Whittaker and a photographer from the HGV Test Station went down in 2012/3 and reported...
"At this level, you are some 35ft-40ft below ground, the door ahead being the actual entrance into the control room upper level. This is currently flooded to a depth of about 18" (46cm). we did not venture beyond this point, but I understand that part of the control room floor is wooden, posing extreme danger for anyone who ventured further into the long abandoned complex.
There is a basement below this level at a depth of about 60ft below ground, but this is totally submerged.
Following its closure, the underground complex was sealed off, however, thieves and vandals broke in during the 1960s, vandalising the interiors and stealing anything of worth including all the copper cabling, and the electric pumps that kept the place free of flood water. The remnants of the cable saddles can be seen on the walls. I'm not sure what the tubes/bar ends are that protrude through the wall are, unless this is part of the structure's reinforcement.
Over the years the rising water table has caused the place to flood extensively, making penetration of the upper level of the subterranean complex extremely dangerous, and the lower level impossible. The water marks on the wall indicate the highest water levels.
Please note that this former RAF facility is on private property and is not open, or accessible to the public; it is also sealed off from the outside world by locked steel doors. A similar facility exists at Uxbridge that served Fighter Command 11 Group, which is restored to its WW2 condition and is open to the public.
It's a case of who you know, rather than what you know. Best left to those who know better, but certainly not for me, it really wasn't very pleasant down there."
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| Filter Block under cover in background and ruined 1950's Communications Centre complex and access tower. |
Notes and Sources:
Restoration Man video
Someone who worked there describes the curved glass windows in the Filter Room. Like the Ops Room artists impression or is he getting mixed up with the Ops Room?
Local lads who broke into the bunker in 1965/6 reported it here
https://nottstalgia.com/forums/topic/4016-nottingham-bunker/?page=4 by user Firbeck
Posted February 12, 2014
On 1/14/2014 at 9:04 PM, ExwatnallblokeGerry said:
Hi, Bilbraborn - I wonder if you were one of the youngsters in there when I paid a visit, many years ago. I took a friend to see the place, and I'd gone on a bit about how it was all top secret. We stood outside the big steel doors, that were very solidly welded shut, and we suddenly heard kids' voices from inside! Someone said they had got in through the air-conditioning system. Was that you?!
When I did eventually get inside, some time later, I was disappointed to see how it had been knocked around (I'm not blaming you!). A lot of the stuff had been pinched, probably for scrap value. I'd have loved one of the wall-clocks - they were marked off in different colours at two-and-a-half-minute intervals, and we chaps who worked at the tables had to keep a constant eye on them and use markers of the appropriate colour so that the controllers (ina big glass-fronted gallery above us) could look down and see which information was bang up to date. Simple idea, but clever.
Hi, I was just going to inform everyone it was on tonight, but alas too late, thank God it is George Clarke as I mentioned earlier.
Bilbraborn and I went into the bunker sometime during the winter 1965/66, some bricks had been removed from the air conditioning vent and, crawling along the square steel shaft, a gap had been prised between sections and we squeezed through to find ourselves in the machinery room which was completely intact.
Fortunately we had torches which we had taken with us, the whole point of the hike was to cover the MR branch from Nottingham to Bennington Junction and we knew we had Watnall tunnel to contend with. Finding the bunker was a bonus, we had no idea it was there, firstly we were surprised at the width of the cutting then discovered the 'H' block buildings down there, these were pretty derelict and overgrown but were linked to the bunker with a passage way, I had my camera with me that day and curse not photographing any of this, all I took was the entrance to Watnall tunnel that I put on one of the threads last week.
Whoever had broken in had not done any damage, but the place was empty apart from the huge ops table still in place in the plotting room and a load of documents marked 'Top Secret' in a cupboard which dated from the early 50's and related to aircraft movements, Vampires, Meteors and Canberras, where the hell those have got to I've no idea, I've never been able to find them amongst the piles of old railway documents that I have. Had there been an original sector clock on the wall, that would have gone straight into my rucksack but such fittings had probably been taken when the RAF vacated the place, and I don't know when that was. I did go back again soon after with some other friends, as soon as we got into the air shaft, we could smell burning, somebody had attempted to torch the place, not that there was anything much to burn, but it was clearly recent and the air was still still thick with fumes and smoke, we got out pretty quickly and never went back, apart from trying to unscrew the steel doors from the outside with a very hefty screwdriver, it failed of course.
Perhaps more of the history of the place will be revealed tonight, our George likes to prepare his little scrapbook for the owners, Channel 4 means it will be in HD too.
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Weeeell, not a bad programme, having worked in the planning/building consultancy business for nearly 45 years I would suggest that he's going to run out of money and it will never be completed, I hope I'm wrong.
It frightened me to death when they were in the plant room with that maze of ducting, how Bilbraborn and I got through it intact I'll never know, at least we saw it in it's pre- vandalised state, though the curved glass windows had gone by then, removed officially I suspect rather than smashed.
They didn't actually show the east elevation where the other entrance was linked to the surface block, above that being the vent inlet we crawled into. The place wasn't flooded when we went in, though the cutting always has been whenever I've been there.
Around 1964 my friend and myself (who was in fact the late nottstalgia member - Firbeck) managed to access the filter block through the vent shaft, and no it was not us who nicked the metal. Realising where we were, we got out very quickly. The next time I visited the site was in 1984 with my children just before the surface barracks were demolished. Everything in the old cutting had changed. I still like to explore disused railways but I am careful where I go these days
Facebook posting
https://www.facebook.com/thesecretbunkerwatnall?locale=en_GB
My name is Elizabeth Kelly (WAAF # 2133727). I was the youngest on the Switch for Watnall Bunker during WW2 and was on duty the morning of D Day. I am 90 and remember if it was yesterday, now living in Hervey Bay, Queensland, Australia.
Battle of Britain RAF magazine and After the Battle magazine. Editor Mr. Bennett and contributor Mr. Long of Winthorpe, Skegness.
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