I have had some caches in this area for almost 10 years and have been backwards and forwards on many occasions either doing maintenance or simply walking the dog in the adjacent meadows. I only gave the green, metal turrets coming out of the ground a cursory glance whilst walking past and honestly thought that it was part of a water tank or cesspit. It was only when I noticed a new brick building that had been constructed on the site that I decided to do a little research. It appears that what I could see actually related to a Royal Observatory Corps observation post and underground bunker. I have seen and heard about some of these on my Geocaching travels but never realised that we had one so close to home and , as it turned out, one which has had some significant TLC and has all but been transformed back to its former glory.
HOWEVER, PLEASE DO NOT TRESPASS AS IT IS LOCKED AND ON PRIVATE PROPERTY.
It would seem that the owners actually open it up for the public once a year for an open day but you will have to check the internet if you wanted to try and combine finding the cache with this open day. As and when I find out when the next one is then I will amend the listing accordingly. I have attached a number of images showing the before and after shots of the bunker. I also found the following info regarding these bunkers:
"-----I'm sure there must be files and files of secrets about the Cold War locked away in some quiet, dusty Whitehall basement, most of which won't be released in our lifetimes. However, here's one Cold War secret you probably won't know about: Did you know that for more than 30 years, there were 19 secret nuclear bunkers hiding beneath the Leicestershire countryside? Since its inception in 1925, the Royal Observer Corps (ROC) had been a vital part of Britain's air defence system, plotting enemy aircraft over Britain. With the threat changing from conventional to nuclear in the 1950s, the ROC became part of the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation. From 1958, ROC teams of three observers were housed in small, underground concrete bunkers, usually in remote parts of the country. Equipped with monitoring instruments, their role was to pinpoint and report nuclear impacts to a Group HQ. The observers were expected to survive for up to 21 days in the confines of the 15ft by 7ft bunker. In Leicestershire, there were 19 underground posts at Birstall, Billesdon, Bottesford, Buckminster, Coleorton, Cold Overton, Empingham, Fleckney, Harby, Lutterworth, Markfield, Melton Mowbray, Rearsby, Shepshed, Stoke Golding, Thurlaston, Twycross, Uppingham and Wymeswold. They were grouped in clusters of three or four and reported to a master post, which communicated directly to a group control in either Coventry or Bedford. Although, the doomsday volunteers trained for the unthinkable, fortunately, their services were never called upon and the posts were closed with the end of the Cold War, in September 1991. At the end of the Cold War, many of the posts were either demolished or vandalised. In 2008, resident Terry Bottrill bought the vandalised Stoke Golding site and has since done a fine job of restoring the post to its original condition. Terry now holds several open days a year, exhibiting this important, but thankfully redundant, darker part of the county's history-----"
I hope you enjoy visiting this little piece of history.