ABSTRACT
The city of Bristol is located in the south-west region of the United Kingdom mainland. It is the largest settled area in that geographical region. During the first decade of the Cold War, it was also noted as a Regional Seat of Government and centre of Home Defence Region 7. To administer this and organise rescue and support in the form of the Civil Defence Corps, Bristol was provided with a purpose-built War Room (a two storey bunker with a protection factor of 400) and four refurbished structures from WWII dispersed around the city. By 1955, the entire war room network was deemed redundant, primarily due to the development of the H-bomb. From then on, the city of Bristol took on a new role. Along with the H-bomb came an awareness of a new phenomenon – radioactive fallout. The majority of official literature from then on utilised the City as a ‘target’, demonstrating the path of fallout after Bristol’s ‘destruction’. This paper explores the relationship between the halcyon days of post-war atomic planning and contrasts it with the period when the City reacted against the threat of the H-bomb, becoming a nuclear free city and refusing to update Home Defence policies. Was the use of Bristol as an example of a targeted city merely a product of geographical circumstance, or was there something more to this? This paper explores those heterotopical concepts.
