Orford Ness no longer an 'awful mess'

Former nuclear base Orford Ness is enjoying a green half-life, says Jack Watkins

Blast from the past: looking across Orford harbour Photo: ALAMY

By Jack Watkins

12:00PM BST 20 Aug 2009

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It's synonymous with the days when Britain was still trying to cut it as a military superpower, a desolate spot where, alongside experiments in aircraft and radar technology, tests on our first atom bomb, Blue Danube, were performed. Today, Orford Ness is a world-renowned nature reserve and the veil of secrecy that hung over much of what went on here has been lifted. But the air is still charged with an undercurrent of Cold War menace.

"It's one of the few places you can come to that you can truthfully describe as 'strange,'" says Duncan Kent, visitor services warden of the 10-mile shingle strip, now owned by the National Trust, which balances public access with protecting its military and wildlife value. "It's only a couple of minutes across the River Ore to the Suffolk mainland, but people say it feels like they've come miles into a different country."

We are on the roof of the former bomb ballistics building, from where drop-testing of newly designed bombs was monitored from the Thirties. The iron railings give off an eerie hum in the unrelenting breeze. Around us stretch vast, flat acres of vegetated shingle, a precious habitat not widely admired because of its bleak, wind-blasted unloveliness.

To the south-west are the famous Suffolk coastal landmarks, the so-called Pagodas, built as test labs for nuclear weaponry in the Fifties and Sixties. Away to the north the huddle of grey buildings forms the Cobra Mist site, from where a project into the detection and tracking of aircraft missiles and satellite launches operated. This was an expensive white elephant that was soon abandoned. Today the World Service transmitters are located at Cobra Mist, but some claim it was really built to monitor UFOs and that a downed spaceship is still housed within the complex.

"I've never seen any sign of one when I've been inside," says Kent, but he agrees that the Ness is the sort of alien landscape where you feel such a thing could exist. Even before the military arrived it had a ghoulish reputation. In 1749, there was a report of a winged crocodile-like creature rearing up from the surrounding water and attacking the local fishermen.

The Trust has resisted the temptation to turn it into a kind of sci-fi theme park. They had inherited a property with such a bad reputation it was known as "Awful Mess".

"After it was abandoned by the Ministry of Defence in 1986 there was random access and the scrap merchants moved over in a big way," explains Kent. "Local vandals were falling into pits and breaking their arms. Our policy has been one of non-disturbance, allowing nature to reclaim the place, rather than to embark on a debris clearance programme. The sense of dereliction adds to the atmosphere."

The bomb ballistics building is one of the few pre-war brick structures to survive. In Lab 1, where the first major test on an atomic weapon took place, the pit into which the Blue Danube was lowered by a 10–ton crane is now covered in duckweed and green slime. Lichens and mosses have colonised the walls. The roof, designed to blow away in the event of an accident, is now open. A rusting air duct hangs precariously, looking as if a sudden gust could bring it down and skewer you to the floor.

Many Defence sites have large, undisturbed areas where flora and fauna can flourish and the soil is free of farmland pollutants. But opening up the shingle spit to the public has created a new challenge. Orford Ness is one of only three major shingle landforms in England. The pattern of shingle ridges that have formed so as to enable colonisation by plants is quickly destroyed by walkers so access must
be limited.

"It's a difficult case to sell," admits Kent, "because vegetated shingle doesn't grab people's imagination. But it's as precious as coral and we must protect it."

On a bank of shingle beside one of the pagodas is a patch of yellow-horned poppy, a characteristic flower of a shingle beach. Poets may sing the praises of primroses and bluebells, but I've never seen one to match this dusty-looking species.

They're angular, spiky things with thick, scrunchy leaves. Everything you see growing around here has a pretty hard time of it, because, quite literally, they're living life on the edge," laughs Kent. The poppies might even serve as an emblem, for there's nothing normal about Orford Ness.

• Orford Ness is one of the most heavily protected areas in Britain for its range of undisturbed wildlife habitats. Access is by boat (five minutes) from Orford Quay, operated by the National Trust until September 30 (01394 450900; www.nationaltrust.org.uk)