A nuclear bunker is to be transformed into a museum, STV has reported.

The Barton Quarry bunker, which is buried beneath Corstorphine Hill, is expected to be restored to its original state and become a visitor attraction for the city of Edinburgh.

James Mitchell, who runs Scotland's Secret Bunker in Fife, bought the Edinburgh site for £65k six years ago. Along with a team of enthusiasts, he is now hoping to restore the bunker to what it looked like in the 1950s.

Once work is completed, Mr Mitchell hopes it will attract 400,000 visitors a year. This is ten times as many people who currently visit the Fife site.


Around £2m of funding needs to be raised in order for the initiative to begin and be successful.

He said: "I just want to bring it back to the way it was and have a major tourist attraction in Edinburgh.

"We hope to get all the schools coming down. It is in the centre of Edinburgh, but nobody would know it was there."

Construction of the Barton Quarry bunker initially began in 1952 following the Cherry Report three years earlier. In the report, it recommended the UK improve its air defences with the threat of Soviet missiles looming. Included in the complex was a radio station to broadcast messages to survivors, an operations room and a kitchen with enough supplies for two weeks, but the bunker became obsolete by the late 1960s.

In 1983, the Home Office passed the bunker to council control and the local authority is thought to have sold it four years later.

(JP/CD)