Underground Bunker

Harnham Bunker was constructed in an existing 19th century chalk quarry. Across the road from the bunker stood a grand building that operated as the southern command for the army. The bunker was orginally constructed during World War II to house an emergency telephone exchange should the main building be bombed. The bunker was constructed from cast reinforced concrete in the base of  the  existing  quarry  and  then  buried.  It  was  created  with  a  long  access  ramp  which  led  to  a sealable entrance lobby. 

Following the war, the use of the bunker appears to have been surplus to military requirement and by  1950  at  least  part  of  it  was  being  used  as  a  youth  club  called  the  ‘Under  the  Hill  Club’. Curiously, a surviving planning application from 1954 reveals a change of use from a Post Office exchange to a carpet-beating depot, although its civilian use appears to have been short-lived. 

By 1962-3,  the  bunker  had  been  re-fitted  and  used  as  the  Salisbury  Urban  District  Civil  Defence Control Centre. A decontamination shower was installed just before entering the main body of  the  bunker.  It  was  equipped  with  self-contained  generator  room  and  air  filtration  plant  which were vented via vertical concrete shafts to the surface. Along with the utility rooms the bunker was equipped  with  a communications  room,  main  control  room,  a  kitchen  and  toilets  allowing  essential workers to survive for weeks below ground during a national emergency. In the event of blockage of  the  main  entrance,  there  was  an  escape  passage  and  vertical  shaft  fitted  with  a  ladder  for escape to the surface. The building appears to have functioned in this capacity until the end of the Cold War. The latest refurbishment was carried out in the 1980s.

Around 2016 the site was the subject of a historic-building record to support a planning change of use: local groups proposed converting the disused bunker into a youth music and education facility known as “The Sound Emporium.” Sadly this enterprise did not reopen after Covid. The lease was taken over in 2021 by the Underground Studios - and they are currently running music and programming classes in the bunker (2025). 

It’s a local example of how wartime and Cold War civil-defence infrastructure was often re-purposed or hidden in existing features (here, a chalk quarry), and its survival gives archaeologists and historians a good glimpse of mid-20th century Civil Defence design and community preparedness.