| Abstract: |
A programme of building recording was carried out on two structures at ground level underlying the principal operational buildings of Sunderland City Council Civic Centre, namely a Cold War-period Nuclear Bunker and a Railway Tunnel, both long-abandoned and in a state of dereliction. The recording work responds to a Specification document provided by the planning archaeologist for Tyne & Wear (MON16512) setting out the requirement for recording in order to advance understanding of the structures prior to their proposed demolition, along with the rest of the Civic Centre complex, and redevelopment of the site for residential housing. The Nuclear Bunker site, within the short north-east face of the northernmost hexagon of the early 1970s Civic Centre complex, measures some 32 by 7 m, set at right angles to the face through which it is entered. Its walls are of concrete shuttering, and its roof of close-set steel sheets shaped and riveted together into the form of a ceiling of beams of trapezoidal section. Its main structure, accessed from both ends by steel-plated doors, focuses on two rooms, Room 1 measuring 6.2 m long and 5.2 m wide with an integral WC block, the other, to the north, occupying the full width of the subterranean structure and measuring 11.5 by 6.7 m. Room 1 is dry-lined in part, otherwise of bare concrete, and contains a considerable amount of rectangular-section ventilation ducting, while Room 2 is largely empty. The end passage ends with a circular stairwell, largely infilled with loose concrete rubble, containing the remains of a cast-iron newel stair which can be traced beyond the ceiling level. A mid-19th century railway line east from the south end of the present railway station (Sunderland Central) originally served the docks on the south side of the mouth of the Wear, but the short section adjacent to the station had closed by 1953, although the existence of the tunnel here described proved that there was some plan for its re-use. The present section of tunnel, the central north side of which lies some 10 m south of the circular stairwell entrance to the nuclear bunker, is c 187 m long, 7.9 m wide and c 5 m high, largely constructed of shuttered concrete, spanned by a series of pendant flat arches, with four pedestrian refuges provided on each side. Examination of these two, closely-adjacent and contemporary structures has shown them to survive well, albeit in a state of dereliction and having been subject to some damage by vandalism which, in addition to minor structural damage, has removed most of any fixtures and fittings which may have been present there until abandonment. Evidence for the former existence of demolished fixtures and equipment does not survive in the tunnel but does survive in the bunker, where quite elaborate provision was made for ventilation and air filtration, and presumably also for communication, although none of the fittings survive in a state which merits preservation or, indeed, allows for the full explanation of its modus operandi. |
