One hundred feet below the town of Corsham in Wiltshire, England, is a 35-acre, once top-secret city called Burlington. And, yes, it’s a whole city. There are 60 miles of roads lined with streetlamps, a railway station, hospitals, kitchens – there’s even a pub called the Rose and Crown, according to The Times. And if you were living in this city, you might well like a pint of ale. Why? It was built in the 1950s to accommodate 4,000 government cabinet members and civil servants in the event of nuclear war.

The subterranean city of Burlington includes a lake, believe it or not, which was supposed to provide drinking water to the 4,000 residents – that is, until it would inevitably run dry after about three months. And according to the BBC, the city also had 12 tanks of fuel that could keep its four generators running – again for about three months. In addition to the power station and the water supply, Burlington had a phone system and a broadcasting room where the prime minister could speak to the outside world (assuming the outside world still existed) via a BBC station.

But Burlington wasn’t always an underground city. Originally, it was a stone quarry that was tapped to build the houses of Bath, and after that, part of it served as a jet engine factory. Some of Burlington’s cafeteria walls are painted with swirly murals of some odd things, according to the BBC: For example, there’s a missionary worker being boiled alive in a pot, surrounded by some tribal folks who are gnawing on bones. And there’s a rabbit holding up a speared heart. (Yeah, stuff like that.) These murals were originally painted for the enjoyment of the factory workers but were left to adorn the walls even after the space was renovated into a bunker. 

It’s weird down there.

More strange cities…
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