Online auctions are usually filled with fragile antiques and niche memorabilia that ought not to be touched. Those looking for something a bit more durable are now in luck.
An underground bunker with no running water or electricity but built to help survive a nuclear attack is to go on sale next month.
The bunker in Repps with Bastwick, near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, is described by auctioneers as a “rare opportunity to purchase a piece of British postwar history” but it has “extremely limited accommodation”.
It comes with a £10,000 to £20,000 guide price for next month’s 24-hour auction. It is one of many observation posts built during the 1950s, according to the auctioneer Trevor Blythe, from Brown&Co estate agents. He said there were about 1,500 similar bunkers built around the UK and some of them had sold for good money.
He said: “Observation posts like the one we are selling were built to provide protective, but extremely limited, accommodation for three observers in the event of a nuclear attack.”
The former military observation post sits under land owned by a local farmer, just a few feet into a field on Church Road.
Fred Sharman, the owner, told the BBC: “There’s no facilities of electric, toilet or water but there is what I call a ‘bucket and chuck-it’ toilet. I think it’s going to be someone a bit quirky. I don’t think it’s the everyday person’s sort of thing but it’s whatever floats your boat and maybe that person’s out there.
“I saw one advertised and I thought: I’ve got one of those, and thought I’d see what I could do with it. If someone sees it and it’s something that they want, and it’s in their money margin, then I’ve got nothing to lose. It’s just a lump of concrete to me.”
Blythe said the bunker was not very practical nowadays. “I don’t think there’s any specific use for it. Maybe a wine cellar, but that’s about it. I can’t think of any other use for it except to come down and enjoy it for what it is; a hole in the ground.”
