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It’s perhaps stating the obvious – but while this blog focuses on the BUILDINGS and STRUCTURES created as a reaction to the Cold War, we can’t forget that at the very centre of it all was the threat posed by nuclear weapons. You don’t, for example, build bunkers with thick, thick walls deep underground for nothing, after all.
All the structures featured here – such as the lonely bunker perched on the top of a hill at Castleton or in the middle of the countryside at Hack Green, and the strangeness of places like Orford Ness – were built because of the nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union.
And, of course we had our own “nukes”, too. From early British nuclear efforts like the snub-nosed Yellow Sun bomb, to the seemingly massive Thor missile system, from the sub-launched Polaris to the cancelled Skybolt missile, this was the business end of the British response to any nuclear threat from the USSR.
Some say these weapons and and others helped keep the Soviet threat at bay for about four decades – while others, will of course, disagree.
Whatever your view, what you see below is the cold hard reality at the heart of the Cold War years – now, thankfully, just on show in museums across the country!
GALLERY: CLICK BELOW TO SEE FULL SIZE IMAGES
Yellow Sun Nuclear Bomb (RAF Cosford) 
Thor Missile
(RAF Cosford)
Blue Steel Missile
(RAF Cosford)
WE177: Multi-purpose Nuclear Weapon
(RAF Cosford)
Vulcan Bomb Bay
(RAF Cosford)
Red Beard Nuclear Bomb (Museum of Naval Firepower, Portsmouth) 
Skybolt Missile
(RAF Cosford)
Polaris Missile
(RAF Cosford)
Polaris Warhead
(Royal Navy Submarine Museum)
Polaris Missile Trigger
(Royal Navy Submarine Museum)
Polaris Submarine Nuclear Missile Firing Panel (Royal Navy Submarine Museum) 
Polaris Missile
(Royal Navy Submarine Museum)
Nuclear Bomb Launch Button, Vulcan Bomber XJ823 (Solway Aviation Museum)
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