By fortune of one of those moments of uncanny convenience I was pondering which bunker after-lives to write about next, when I stumbled upon a timely Tweet from Longbarrow Press pointing me in the direction of a reading of Alistair Noon’s poem Hill with Bunker and Flak Tower:
Go on then, plan for the eternal
with cupola, column and arch:
Interesting. I had no idea these impressive concrete towers are still there, or were ever built. Apart perhaps from Churchill’s bunker in Whitehall this country had nothing like these in London, never mind Sheffield.
Obviously height seemed important, to take the guns just a bit closer to the planes (eg. Wincobank) and clear of distracting fires and other lights, blackout aside.
Reminds me of a trip to the Atlantic Wall in north west France in the 1980’s, although there’s nothing there quite on this scale – it was mostly built to withstand naval landings …