Did you know that just a short drive away from here, deep below the Lincolnshire Wolds, there lies a cavernous former nuclear bunker built at the height of the Cold War?

Just 30 miles south of Grimsby exists a one-time command centre designed to safeguard the lives of 130 of the most powerful people in Britain.

The base at the villlage of Skendleby, near Spilsby, was among the biggest of the nation’s underground networks and would have become a key survival centre had Britain come under attack from Russian nuclear weapons.

Read more: The day the Humber Bridge ‘collapsed’ captured in vintage photos

Work began on the site in complete secrecy in 1953.

Encased behind inch-thick steel doors and thousands of tons of concrete, the facility was kitted out so key government and military personnel could stay underground for three months, without any need for contact with the outside world.

The bunker was prepped for use during the Cuban missile crisis in the early 1960s and the nuclear power race between the USA and the USSR.

Later in the decade the RAF handed the site over so it could begin a new life as a civil defence regional headquarters that controlled Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the bunker was decommissioned and sold off.

Back in 2003, it was bought by global computer security company CentriNet who specialised in keeping hackers and viruses out of Government departments, banks and airlines.

Before the sale, local media were invited to take one last look around the building.

What struck visitors the most was that there was little on the surface to alert you that beneath your feet was 21,000 sq feet of open space.

All that was visible above ground were four green ventilation towers, a radio mast, and the unobtrusive ‘bungalow’ entrance building, partially hidden by trees and hedges.

But underground it was a wholly different story.

See more pictures in the gallery below

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