3 YouTubers Lived Streamed From Our Nuclear Bunker. Here's What Happened.
Last weekend, Barnton Bunker played host to something a little different.
Three YouTube creators. Mike from UK Urban Prepper, Brian from Scottish Prepper 73, and Alan from World Survivalist arrived on Friday afternoon. By 8pm they were live streaming a Q&A podcast to over 1000 people who had absolutely no idea where in the world they were!
An Undisclosed Location
The live stream was billed as coming from an "undisclosed location." The comments section spent the first few minutes trying to figure out where they were. Once the penny dropped, a real, working nuclear bunker in Edinburgh, the questions came flooding in.
It took a while for some viewers to clock it. As Mike pointed out mid-stream:
"Edinburgh Zoo is pretty much touching it. You might have passed it multiple times and never realised it's here."
How deep does it go? Can you actually visit? How much does it cost? Where do I book?
Their people wanted in!
I Thought It Was a Total Loss
1990 Fire damage at the bunker
Brian, Scottish Prepper 73, had history with this place long before he arrived last weekend.
He'd seen Barnton Bunker years earlier. Fire damaged, vandalised, gutted. Tyres piled through the entrance. Everything stripped, burned, destroyed. He'd written it off as lost to history.
Coming back last weekend, his words said it all.
"I was like a kid in a candy shop. I thought it was gone forever. And then I saw what it is now, and it exceeded every expectation I had."
He's already planning to come back and bring his son and brother.
Brian talking live in the main tunnel at the bunker
A Proper TARDIS
The Central Ops Room in its prime before the fires
3 flights of stairs when in their prime before the fires
For those who haven't been, the scale of this place is hard to grasp from the outside.
From above ground it looks substantial. But as Mike described it during the live:
"That does it no justice whatsoever. You go through that big tunnel into the mountain and the scale of it is just awesome."
It's an R4 bunker, four storeys, one above ground, three below. The walls are 12 feet thick. More than a car's length of solid concrete. Phone signal drops to SOS only by the second level.
The Central Operations Room opens up across all three underground floors the were walls scorched black from the fire in the early 90s, original infrastructure stripped, but the bones of something extraordinary still very much there and a work in restoration progress.
"It's a proper TARDIS," said Mike. "It looks pretty big from above, but that does it no justice whatsoever."
Mike recording with his Go Pro in our main tunnel
I Didn't Know It Existed (And I Live Nearby)
Alan talking during the YouTube Live Stream
Alan from World Survivalist approaches survival from a wilderness perspective, stone tools, shelters, living with nature. A nuclear bunker is about as far from his usual territory as it gets.
But that contrast is exactly what made it work for him.
"I don't live far from here. And I didn't know it existed."
He spent the visit thinking about the two extremes of human survival in the ancient instinctive way, and the cold war infrastructure way.
The content creators taking the tour
Standing in the space where real people would have sheltered from nuclear threat gave him something no amount of research could replicate.
Around half the comments on his channel during the live were some version of the same question:
Where is this and how do I get there?
Now you know!
You Have to Come and Experience It
For Mike, what sets Barnton Bunker apart is exactly what some might see as its rough edges.
"It's the difference between a ruined castle and a tourist attraction with bells and whistles. You really get to experience, feel, smell the history."
During the live, someone asked whether the bunker would still function if it needed to be commissioned today. The answer, delivered live to over a 1000 people was honest and brilliant:
"This is a fixer upper." The structure is intact. The walls are sound. But the original air filtration, water purification, communications equipment, all of it was destroyed or stripped out decades ago”.
Who's restoring it? Volunteers, donations and time.
Mike's verdict at the end of the live:
"Visit this place or donate to it if you can."
What This Place Is Becoming
The newly restored tote board replica
Barnton Bunker is a heritage site, a cold war R4 bunker being brought back to life by people who believe it matters.
Brian put it best: "Generations going forward can actually get the chance to see something being brought back to its former glory. I thought it was lost. I genuinely thought it was lost."
It’s not and you can come and see it for yourself.
Come Underground
Tours run at weekends. Booking is online.
Whether you're a prepper, a history lover, or just someone who wants to walk through a tunnel into a piece of Cold War Edinburgh, this is worth the trip.
Book your tour: https://www.barntonbunker.com/book-your-tour
Want to support the restoration? Contact us for event bookings or donations. info@barntonbunker.com
Missed the live stream? Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOtAJBwtyVU
