A - Tunnel - Birmingham Findings Trail (sitios de interés)

'Below You Are Miles Of Tunnels'

 

Birmingham Jewellery Quarter Findings Trail, designed by Laura Potter.

 

In the early 1950's, the government planed to protect essential communications by building a series of hardened underground telephone exchanges. These were designed to protect the chain of communications even if a Hiroshima sized atomic bomb destroyed the city above. Due to advances in weapons they were obsolete by the time they were complete, however they still played an important part in national communications. There are three known exchanges, London (Kingsway), Manchester (Guardian) and Birmingham (Anchor). 

 

Anchor takes its name from the Birmingham assay office which is above the exchange, the mark for Birmingham being an anchor. It was the largest of the three underground exchanges packed with equipment handling 250,000 automatic calls a day.