GET THE LATEST NEWS FROM ACROSS THE COUNTY IN YOUR INBOX SIGN UP Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

On the outskirts it looks like a country house hotel, set in woodland on the edge of the vale of Evesham but Wood Norton Hall hides a hidden secret - a Cold War bunker built to house the BBC in case of dire emergencies.

Gloucestershire and the surrounding areas are well versed in ‘secrets’ from the big spy base shaped like a doughnut at the end of the Golden Valley in Cheltenham to those ‘secret' spy planes and bombers which happen to visit RAF Fairford or that bunker up at Ullenwood which was built to protect the council from WW3 but this one is a bit different.

Tucked away just off the A44, in a thick forest, is a hint at what lies beneath. There’s a small radio mast and a serious looking security barrier but nothing else to hint of a huge network of tunnels built deep into the Worcestershire hillside. Built in 1966 the bunker at Wood Norton Hall was used as recently as 2010 when the Independent reported that Continuity announcers were temporarily based there while the refurbishment of Broadcasting House were completed.

(Image: Google Street View)

Driving past you'd not notice anything other than the signs, but those barriers are a bit more serious than your normal BBC base. The official word from Auntie is that Wood Norton is a training base, where sound engineers and technical staff go for residential course but beneath the obvious technology visible from GoogleEarth is an amazing secret - a mast which would be transmitting BBC radio if the country was ever in crisis.

The Cold War bunker is reportedly built several storeys into the hill, built in secret by workers who had to sign the official secrets act. It is known as PAWN, Protected Area Wood Norton and apparently is still ready to go at the push of a button should something happen to Broadcasting House which would stop the Beeb from broadcasting.

(Image: PA)

In documents released in 2016, known as the War Book, the BBC outlined further how Wood Norton would be used in the event of a serious attack on the country.

The original plan was to use Wood Norton in the event of war. All broadcasting of the BBC's National Programme including news, entertainment and Government announcements would be broadcast from the secret hillside base. It is believed the bunker contains accommodation for staff and there are even rumours of a ping pong table.

The bunker can house 90 BBC staff which, according to the War Book would have included engineers, announcers, 12 news editors and sub-editors and "two nominations from Religious Broadcasting". Output would have been controlled by the Government and BBC Radio 4 would have been converted to become the main radio station providing news and updates.

The main house was bought by the BBC at the beginning of WW2 with the aim of becoming a hidden base for the corporation in the event of hostilities in London. Specially designed studios were built and by the 1940s it was one of the biggest broadcasting centres in Europe, home of the BBC Monitoring Service until 1943.

After the war it was turned into an engineering training base before the bunker was built. The main house remained in the hands of the BBC until the beginning of this century, it was used for conferences and once as the set for a Dr Who spin off. It was sold off by the then Commissioner General Gregg Dyke and is now a posh country house hotel.

Apart from the brief action in 2010 it is thought the bunker has laid unused since 1999 when apparently the site was a hive of action in preparation for the Millennium Bug.

GloucestershireLive approached the BBC Press Office for further detail on Wood Norton but no comment was provided.