There is a specific kind of dead silence you only get when you are buried under fifteen feet of reinforced concrete. Walking down into the Hack Green nuclear bunker, the sheer physical weight of the place hits you before you even reach the blast doors. It is a claustrophobic monument to a cancelled apocalypse. This is a place designed in anticipation of war. Decades ago, this was a subterranean tomb built to manage the end of the world. Now, we casually wander its corridors on a quiet afternoon.
This place holds a lot of personal history for me. Back in 2012, I had just left rehab at The Priory in Altrincham. My best friend in the whole world, Owen, started taking me on monthly trips out to help me get out of the house. These trips helped rebuild my confidence, and start seeing things again. Hack Green and IWM North were among our very first trips. During those visits, the underlying realities of human conflict and the shadow of war hung quietly between every conversation. Having Owen there made all the difference during a time when leaving the house felt daunting.
Moving through the lower levels of Hack Green, the atmosphere is heavy with the smell of damp concrete and age. What strikes you isn’t just the isolation, but the hardware—analog radar screens, rows of rotary phones, fallout maps, and decommissioned nuclear weapons. These were built to coordinate survival from the dark. All of these artifacts trace back to past war threats and preparations.
IWM North
Fast forward several years, and these places have become landmarks for different seasons of my life. I’ve been back a few times, most recently taking Ben to IWM North to look through everything together. Our shared memories remain intertwined with the history of war embedded in each display.
Step out into the daylight at Salford, and the mood shifts from hidden dread to sharp, aluminum geometry. The Imperial War Museum North cuts straight into the sky. So it was designed to feel intentionally disorienting—slanted floors and sharp angles that keep you slightly off-balance.
Inside, looming war machinery sits under harsh gallery lighting alongside sober memorials. Standing next to actual nuclear bomb casings and massive artillery pieces makes history feel less like something locked away in textbooks. Instead, it feels more like something heavy, real, and surprisingly recent.
Walking back out into the normal afternoon light, places like these leave a lasting residue on you. Ultimately, these are places shaped by war and the effort to remember its consequences. They remind us how much effort human beings put into building for worst-case scenarios, but also remind us of the good memories made there with the people who matter most.