In a leafy 700 acre site, complete with three ornamental lakes, lies the heart of Britain’s nuclear option. The Atomic Weapons Establishment, AWE, has been at the former RAF wartime base at Aldermaston for more than 75 years. Once the target of the CND marches of the 60s, it is now guarded with layers of barbed wire fences, snipers and specially trained police.
The site’s main effort is in developing the next-generation nuclear warhead: the A21/Mk7, known as Astraea, for the new flotilla of four Royal Navy ballistic missile submarines led by HMS Dreadnought, now nearly completed in the yard at Barrow. The Dreadnoughts (and the Vanguard subs currently in service) maintain what is known as Continuous at Sea Deterrent – or CASD – meaning the UK keeps one armed submarine at sea at all times.
