How did we get here?

I’m sure all museums start the same way… with an idea and an offhand comment “why don’t we turn it into a museum?” So said Angela Siebert standing in the newly acquired old Hack Green RGHQ bunker. She had just moved to Cheshire with the family following the crazy idea of her husband Rodney Siebert, a former Royal Observer Corps member, to take over a nuclear bunker. Having visited this and many similar bunker across UKWMO, he knew what the bunker needed, to look like an operational base. Faced with an empty bunker, next started the incredible task of collecting the artefacts and ephemera from all over the country and the world. Not to mention to enormous task of developing all the necessary infrastructure for opening to the public, from updating the fire safety systems to modern standard and building the shop by hand to producing governance documents and marketing materials.

We have asked him, since then, if seeing it all now he thinks it was a ridiculous endeavour. He says that “someone had to do it, or most of that stuff would have been scrapped” and that “yes, I probably was a bit crazy”. He’s right though, without this and the other bunker museums most of our Cold War civil defence history would be lost. This is a rare opportunity to see a time capsule of a time when the world nearly ended for us all.

Since opening in the Easter holidays of 1997, the Siebert Family have continued to run the bunker. Now their daughter Lucy, who once swept the floors and washed dishes stood on a stool, is the Museum Director. After nearly 25 years the museum has welcomed many thousands of visitors and some of the first children to follow the Spy Mouse Trail are bringing their children to do the same. All of our staff, visitors, supporters and friends are a part of the story of the Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker Museum, with your help we hope to bring this important piece of our history to many more in the future.