Michael Portillo begins this week’s delve into the country’s secret past in a quaint and sleepy Suffolk village as Hidden History of Britain continues
Michael Portillo begins this week’s delve into the country’s secret past in a quaint and sleepy coastal Suffolk village – but a short boat trip brings him to a huge and mysterious military compound.
At the centre of Orford Ness, a strip of land nine miles long and one mile wide, is a huge metal building which, Michael reveals, was once an American base for spying on the Russians.
In the 1960s it boasted a huge aerial system whose purpose was to detect the launch of a Russian missile.
Michael also discovers that Orford Ness was the eerie location for much of the testing of the UK’s own weapons of mass destruction.
