All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S04E06.Escobars.Ruin.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

Narrator: A ruined compound
on the edge of a peninsula

which was home
to a brutal leader.

It clearly took a huge
amount of money

to build this place so
why did they leave?

What happened here?

Why is it so badly damaged?

Alien looking structures
with no apparent purpose.

They sit isolated and marooned on
this piece of abandoned marshland

and they feel otherworldly.

Damaged buildings
in a barren landscape

with a toxic past.

It looks like some sort
of mad Max hellscape

or they've poisoned the soil

and left nothing but
destruction and ruin behind.

And cottages concealing
an explosive secret.

Underneath these
charming destroyed houses

is clearly something
a bit sinister.

Some are engineering
marvels now abandoned,

others are ruins
shrouded in mystery.

But within each of
these decaying structures

are the echoes of history.

While some are
associated with dark times

they are all reminders of
human ingenuity and endeavour.

Each haunting shell is
now ready to be unmasked

to tell it's own unique story.

In the rolling hills of
guatape in Columbia

beside a shimmering
turquoise lake

is a battered ruin that
looks completely out of place.

On the shores of this enormous
lake stands the ruins of something,

it's not really clear what.

It looks forgotten and in
places it's badly damaged

yet it clearly bears the
hallmarks of a luxury resort.

Translation: "Many people
who come and visit this mansion

"feel all sorts of
strange things."

A collection of buildings in
various states of disrepair

sprawl across 20 acres of
this dramatic looking peninsula.

Throughout the entire complex,

there's a funny
combination of things,

towers that look like they
might be guard towers

and maybe it's an
ornamental feature,

it looks a little bit like a cross
between a playboy mansion

and some kind of military fort.

Vegetation consumes
much of the structure now,

going through the roof
and the crumbling facade.

As you get closer you
can see some odd details,

the walls are very thick
or hollow in some places,

there's signs of some
kind of enormous explosion

so this place clearly
has a story to tell.

Who lived here?

What caused this destruction

and why did this become

one of the most
dangerous places on earth?

In 1983 hundreds of labourers
each with a specific job

started work on this
extraordinary complex,

no expense was spared.

It had a swimming pool,
tennis courts, a football pitch,

none of which sound

out of the ordinary.

But that football
pitch doubled up

as a helipad and it also had

it's own private seaplane dock,

this place was
anything but ordinary.

William jimenez
is a local resident

and was employed
here as a security guard.

Translation: "It took almost
seven years to build the structures

"that you can see here today."

Throughout the long
years of construction,

the surrounding area
also went through a period

of remarkable transformation

but it was not
changed for the better.

Just 25 miles away
is the town of medellin

by the mid 1980s it
was being referred to

as the murder
capital of the world.

It was home to the
infamous medellin drug cartel

which at it's
height was raking in

up to $60 million a
day in drug profits.

It's founding father was
the notorious Pablo Escobar.

Born in rionegro,
Columbia in 1949

Escobar is believed to have been
the wealthiest criminal in history.

By the early 1990s,
he amassed a fortune

estimated at 30
billion us dollars

making him one of the richest
men in the world at the time.

A career that began by
selling contraband cigarettes

and fake lottery tickets

eventually saw him running
a full blown crime empire

involving kidnap,
smuggling and murder.

When you're Pablo Escobar,
you can never really relax,

he was always
surrounded by security.

He had armed guards,

he had walls that were built
like the walls of a fortress.

Escobar wanted to
be ready for anything.

Needing a safe
retreat for his family,

Escobar built this
hacienda la manuela.

It was named after
his own daughter

and it was built purely for
the enjoyment of his family.

Translation: "His family
used to stay here occasionally,

"his mother, his
wife and his children,

"it was an ordinary thing,
it was not a hiding place."

This was one of a string
of palatial properties

enjoyed by Escobar's family.

One located nearby including
a bull fighting arena and a zoo.

Hacienda la manuela
though less extravagant

had secret compartments,

hiding places and
a maze of corridors.

Not to mention
helicopters and speed boats

ready to provide a rapid getaway
across the surrounding waters.

For all it's luxury, security
was the first priority.

Pablo Escobar had
this family retreat

protected by a 120
strong security staff.

It was basically a small army.

Imagine the
paradox of this place,

Escobar wanted it to
be a lovely family retreat,

swimming pool for the kids,

meanwhile he's got shipments
of drugs and cash moving through,

he's got the place
surrounded by armed guards

and seaplanes and
speedboats coming in and out.

It can't have been the most
relaxing spot in the world.

Pablo himself made only
brief appearances here.

Translation: "Pablo was here
two or three times maximum

"but he used to spend only
a few hours here and leave.

"He wouldn't even
stay overnight."

When you're the 7th
richest man in the world

you've got to watch
your back at all times.

By the early 1990s,

Escobar was embroiled
in an all out war

with the columbian government.

After a brief stint in
prison he escaped in 1992

and was to spend the
rest of his life on the run.

With at least 80% of
the us cocaine market

supplied by his medellin
cartel, Escobar was now a target

not only for the
columbian authorities

and the us government
but also for rival drug cartels.

The staff at this mansion including
security guard, William jimenez,

were soon being
drawn in to the turf war.

In 1993, some of Escobar's rivals
managed to infiltrate the compound.

Translation: "What happened
was that six more pick ups

"and one Van
came full of people.

"It was around midnight,
they placed two bombs,

"one on that side
and one on that side."

They stashed this huge quantity
of explosives in a bathroom.

And blew it up.

Translation: "This was where
they placed the biggest bomb.

"There was a huge explosion,

"everything you can
imagine was shaking.

"In this area there
was a bathroom

"and that is where the
bomb exploded upwards.

"And destroyed
the walls around it.

"It was such a
powerful explosion."

The organisation thought to
be responsible was los pepes

which stood for 'persecuted
by Pablo Escobar'.

It was a vigilante group formed
by victims of Escobar's drug war.

CIA documents released in 2008

suggest columbian
intelligence officers

were in contact with los pepes.

In fact it was probably funded
by his rivals in the Cali cartel

we'll never really know
for sure but this bombing

was kind of the beginning
of the end for Escobar.

Medellin became a battleground

in Escobar's war of
supremacy over rival cartels

and also the columbian
and American governments.

Escobar was even
offering reward money

to anyone who killed a
columbian police officer

so the bombing of the mansion
was too good an opportunity

for the police to miss.

Police forces quickly swooped in

and seized all the
drugs and money

now exposed by the
damage from the explosion.

Though no-one had been killed,

for William and many others who
worked here at Escobar's mansion,

the impact was devastating.

Translation: "After the
attack, things were really hard

"not because of the mansion
itself but because a lot of people,

"I'm talking 200, 300 people
from this area lost their jobs,

"that was the
hardest part to me."

The net was now closing around
the so called king of cocaine.

He corrupted the
columbian government

and law enforcement
to a large degree,

none the less, they
still came after him

and the end wasn't
too far away for him.

Leading the manhunt
was colonel Hugo Martinez

of Colombia's national police.

He had hunted Escobar for years,

had turned down countless bribes

and his life had been
under constant threat,

Martinez eventually managed
to pinpoint Escobar's location

using radio
triangulation technology.

There was a
fierce gun fire fight

which saw Escobar and
his bodyguard shot down

as they fled
across the rooftops.

He died as one of the most
wanted criminals in history

and the damage he
did is there for all to see.

Translation: "As it
happens, in most wars

"many innocent people die.

"People who have
nothing to do with it

"and this has happened
in medellin, in Bogota

"and in many other
places in Colombia."

So what became of
Escobar's properties?

Some have been turned
into strange theme parks

while others have been
demolished completely

but this ruined mansion
remains trapped

in a strange form of limbo.

Translation: "At the moment,

"I'm in a legal dispute
with the government

"to have ownership
of this mansion,

"I have been looking after it,

"I have maintained and ensured
that no-one else would invade it."

Deciding on the proper use
for a drug funded property

and the profits from it's sale

is a touchy and legally
complicated subject.

To this day Pablo
Escobar remains

a hugely divisive
figure in Colombia,

there are those who still
revere him as this national hero

but for others caught in the
cross fire and the violence,

he represents everything
wrong with the country.

In the thick forests of wunsdorf
on the outskirts of Berlin

are what appear to be
buildings typical of this region.

What looks like
pretty holiday cottages

that people ought
to be vacationing in

have clearly been
smashed to pieces.

The closer you look,
you can't help but wonder

if these are just
residential houses.

The smashed concrete
is exceedingly thick

and some places
clearly reinforced.

They're entrances to something
that is much much bigger,

underneath these
charming destroyed houses

is clearly something
a bit sinister.

Deeper beneath the tree canopy
is an innocuous looking building,

gaining access to it,
however, is far from easy.

There's almost a feeling of
entering into a secret vault.

Whatever they were doing,

they were clearly trying to disguise
and conceal this from the world.

This place has been home

to several of the world's
most powerful armies

as director of the site,
Werner borchert, reveals.

I think this location
is really fascinating

because there is no other place

where the German
kaiser lead to Hitler

against the Russians
have left their military marks.

In September 1939, it
was occupied by the Nazis,

the date has
special significance.

This was one of the most
important communication centres

for the German army
during world war ii

and guess what,

it was finished just in time
for Hitler's Poland campaign.

This is maybach one,

the headquarters for the high
command of the German armed forces.

And at it's heart is
the zeppelin bunker.

The communication facilities

and the command and control
facilities in these bunkers

are absolutely the beating heart

at the centre of
the Nazi war effort.

It's essentially very close

to what the Pentagon
is in Washington.

In the English speaking
world, we are really fascinated

with the way that the
enigma code was broken.

And the zeppelin bunker
underneath Germany

this is where all the
messages came from

that we were listening to
and breaking at bletchley park.

For obvious reasons, the site
needed to be heavily disguised.

Made to look like
civilian houses

they were given shingled
roofs and plastered walls,

they had fake windows

and the steel armoured
doors were covered with wood

so they looked like just
ordinary household doors.

The buildings were
also low to the ground

and scattered across a
large area in thick pine forest.

They are not laid out
as you would expect,

this from the air
does not look anything

like a military installation.

At the mid point of world ii,

the allies were facing the
very real prospect of defeat,

the bunkers became a
high priority bombing target.

If you're going to try
to bomb this complex,

it actually requires a little
more difficult navigation

than it does on a city

where you'd have a
very clear radar return,

you would have land
marks such as major rivers

that you can use as a
reference point for targeting

but you have something
on the outskirts

it's harder to find
those reference points.

With so few visual
reference points,

finding the target
presented allied bombers

with a serious challenge.

The task was made
harder because from the air,

the complex looked like the
homes of innocent civilians

and much of it was
buried beneath ground.

A ring of subterranean tunnels
connected all 12 house bunkers,

these in turn were linked
to the zeppelin bunker

which covered an area
of 50,000 square feet

spread across two levels.

It had walls more
than ten feet thick

which were encased in an
overall protective concrete shell.

Construction workers were
supposedly only allowed

to work on site in short stints

to prevent them gaining too
much knowledge of it's interior.

It was a stroke of pure luck
that finally came to help the allies.

We have records in
the us national archives

of interrogations
in February of 1944

where a communications
people who have been captured

are talking about this bunker
in the countryside near Berlin.

Allied intelligence now
became even more convinced

of the bunkers significance

but finding and destroying
it was quite another matter.

It took the us army air force

the better part of a year

to pin point the location of the
German army command bunkers

and they put in a serious
raid on it, a big raid.

On 15 march, 1945,

no fewer than 675 us
aircraft came swooping in

as part of a major effort
to destroy the bunkers.

120 people who died
here all civil population.

Because the civil
population was not protected

by bunker facilities.

Despite these
civilian casualties

the facility was left
with barely a scratch,

communications were
disrupted for only a few hours.

But by April 1945,

it was the Soviets army on the
ground that was closing in on the bunker.

The red army takes
advance so rapidly

that the Germans have no
time to put together a plan.

Adolf Hitler was shocked
to be told that Soviet tanks

were less than an
hour from maybach one,

the German army's high command
hq was about to be crushed.

It turned out that the
Soviets had to pause

to refuel with more diesel so
the whole headquarters bugs out

while the Soviets are
refuelling their tanks.

Chief of the army staff,
general hans cribbs,

asked Hitler for permission
to abandoned maybach one

and to destroy all vital
machinery and documents.

Hitler reluctantly agreed
but the order came too late,

there was no time
to destroy anything.

Everything had to be left.

As panicking staff fled,

they were mistakenly
attacked by their own planes.

In the afternoon
of 20 April, 1945

the tanks of the Soviet
3rd armoured guard

moved in to the compound
completely unopposed.

They must have been very
surprised at what they found.

And what did they find?

Allegedly four men, only four,

three of which
surrendered immediately,

the fourth was too drunk
to know what was going on.

Much of the vital
equipment was dismantled

and sent to the Soviet union

where Stalin ordered a
similar complex built for himself

but according to the terms

of the potsdam
agreement of August 1945,

the Soviets were supposed to
destroy captured military installations.

They did just that
but not entirely.

They blow up a lot
of stuff on the surface

but they leave a lot of the
tunnels and a lot of the bunkers.

As soon as you go downstairs,
you see that the Soviets

were clever enough to leave
the guts of this installation in tact.

The Soviets eventually
renovated zeppelin

and the tunnel system

to house their own high command
of Soviet troops in Germany.

They even upgraded the
bunker to be nuclear proof.

This bunker was going
to be the command post

for the Soviet
destruction of NATO,

this command post
was going to be the place

where the commanders

who destroyed
Europe in world war III

would sit in order to do it.

Thankfully it was never needed

but the last Russian soldier
only left as recently as 1994

after decades of
fear and uncertainty

during the cold war years

when world war III seemed
like a very real possibility.

Today the ruins of the complex

provide a fascinating window
into warfare through the ages.

Make not war again,
this is our message here

and that's why we present

the military past here
in zossen wunsdorf,

that's the reason,
that's our message.

Make not war again.

In the south of Portugal,

just a few miles from
the border with Spain

is a place with an other
worldly appearance.

It's almost like a scar
has been opened up,

you've got the lovely
greenery of the ground around it

but in this middle area,
in this sort of swath

of deserted and
destroyed landscape.

You've got all these
interesting colours,

got these black heaps,

you've got yellow bands,
you've got this reddish water

and it's quite beautiful in a
way but also kind of sinister

because these colours
they're not supposed to be here

on the surface of the earth.

Spread across this
baron landscape

are gutted buildings, forgotten
scraps of old rail tracks

and strange towers about
to disintegrate completely.

But the decaying
structures themselves

are far from the
most alarming sight.

The water itself
is dark and eerie

with this kind of
red rim around it,

it's all very very stark
and a little bit crazy.

The whole area, the buildings,
they're damaged, the degradation,

there's a sense that
something poisoned them

and it poisoned the land too.

So what created
this hellish landscape

and why does it remain
this way to this day?

The scorched earth appearance
and damaged buildings

are not the only
scars left on the land.

Nearby is a small
cemetery that holds the clues

as to who was behind all this.

Here we are in the
middle of Portugal

and here's this old graveyard

and the names on the
graves are all English names.

You don't necessarily
think of it now

but back in the 19th century,

Portugal and Spain were
really a land of opportunity,

there were riches
in the ground there

and the English wanted them.

In the 19th century

an English company leased
the land here began mining.

Although they weren't
the first to do so

as joao rolha, an officer
for the local area explains.

Established in the 1850s

and stretching for miles across
the local alentejo landscape,

this is the Sao de mingos mine.

This mine was a massive
industrial operation

and in order to run it,

they needed to make huge
investments in infrastructure.

This is going to be the
first place in Portugal

that has a railway
line extended to it,

it's going to be the first place
in Portugal that has electricity.

All the way down the valley

you have these various
processing centres,

a rail line that would carry
the materials from the mine

and ultimately going all the
way out to the coast to the port.

The new investment
was helping industry

and creating jobs
across the region.

But the condition of the land today
suggests it wasn't all good news.

This was going to bring
Portugal into the modern times

but it's going to
come at a terrible cost

and it's legacy is going
to be a frightening one.

Clearly there was
money to be made here

and a clue to the reasons comes
from the strange coloured water

that lingers in
pools across the site.

Normally when you're
out in the countryside

you see a body of water,
it's a very attractive thing

and you want to go for a dip.

You see this pool of
black reddish water

clearly something's
very wrong with this.

Incredibly just a few years
ago, this pool of dark water

somehow caught fire.

What caused the
fire remains a mystery

but the colouration helps
explain what was being mined here

and why it looks this today.

When I see red colouration like
this I immediately think of iron,

water is highly contaminated
with a lot of iron oxide in it

but I know that it wasn't
iron that they were after

in this particular area.

When the British came
in, they were looking for

a variety of valuable
things, gold, silver, copper,

these things often tended
to travel together in geology.

Ultimately they
focused on the copper.

The 19th century was a time
of huge change across Europe

and Portugal being left behind.

The Sao de mingos mine

was going to drag the
country into the modern age

to join the
industrial revolution.

Copper's a very desirable metal,
it has lots of good properties,

it's highly conductive and
it's got thermal properties

and in the late 1800s, it
was being used for wiring,

the advent of
electricity and so on,

it was really quite
a desirable metal.

But to keep the
money rolling in,

the mine would have
to constantly adapt.

Later, they focused
on the sulphur

which is really just a
contaminate in the copper

but in the 20th century they
discovered that sulphuric acid

was very valuable in all
kinds of industrial processes

like making fertiliser

so they started mining
this just for the sulphur.

The crumbling towers and ruins

and what's left of the
infrastructure tell their own story.

But it was the
extraction and separation

of the metals and chemicals

that had such terrible effects
deep in the earth below.

You have to process the rock
so they needed a lot of water,

they need to heat and smelt
these particular minerals

to essentially remove the copper

from the compounds
that they're associated in.

The contaminated
water from the processing

had to go somewhere.

And that somewhere
was the surrounding land

which became soaked.

While they were
pumping out the water,

they were also pumping
out all kinds of toxins

and lord only knows what
happened to the people

who lived downstream.

The poisoned water was
leaving a trail of destruction.

Dark days lay ahead.

When you mix sulphur with
water you get sulphuric acid,

battery acid, incredibly
dangerous toxic stuff

and this landscape you can see

is polluted with this
from top to bottom.

Not only was the
ground being poisoned,

toxic gases from the sulphur

also filled the air and the
lungs of the workers at the mine.

Eventually the workers are
going to really start to feel

the effects of that.

Stuff being pulled out of
the crown is going to burn,

their equipment it's
going to burn, their clothes,

it's even going
to burn their skin.

The health of the workers
suffered through the years

but their welfare
was hardly a priority

for the mining company

as they found to their cost
when the mine closed in 1966.

Both the mine and
the people of this area

had simply been abandoned.

Today there is hope

that through an extensive
clean up operation,

the land can be
rescued and reclaimed

but it's a daunting task.

You know you've heard the term
fire and brimstone to describe hell,

well, brimstone is the old
fashioned name for sulphur

so when you see a place
like this polluted with sulphur,

it really is literally a
hellish environment.

On the coast of Kent
in southern england

strange formations
unexpectedly emerge

from an empty marshland.

You come across these
giant concrete structures

looming up out of the ground

like some kind of a
concrete satellite dish.

There's something otherworldly
and ethereal about them.

They're eerie as if they
come from another age.

I first saw these
when I was a teenager,

these strange science
fiction type objects

miles from anywhere.

Set amongst peaceful lakes,

two saucer like constructions
sit alongside a huge curved wall.

99% of people, even
the people that live there

probably have very little
idea what these things are.

But the simple appearance
belies their importance.

These are concrete structures

but they are very sophisticated
early 20th century technology.

And it was all
driven by world war I.

Long distance artillery fire was
a key weapon during world war I.

Microphones were
used to try and get a fix

on the location of
enemy artillery guns.

Known as gun ranging,

similar technology is
used today by us police

to triangulate incidents
involving gun fire in major cities.

As the great war progressed,

new innovative sound
detection devices

were developed to meet the challenge
created by new warfare technology.

But the position of these
structures pointing out to sea

clearly show that artillery fire
was not the primary concern.

The location of these
structures right on the coast

facing overlooking the channel

gives you a clue
as to their purpose.

They were built to
pick up the sounds

of approaching enemy aircraft.

Even a few minutes
of extra warning

before those planes
became visible in the sky

could make a massive
difference on the ability

to get your planes in the air.

To defend the country and to
get your civilians into shelters.

These are the
denge sound mirrors.

Situated near the tip of
a headland at dungeness,

they lie just 25 miles
from the French coast

and continental Europe.

There is no other major source
of sound or distraction nearby,

you can focus out
at sea on sound.

The simplest way to
understand how the mirrors works

is what you do yourself,

you want to hear
something you do that.

And that's simply
what the mirrors are,

they're a much larger version
of that, they concentrate sound,

the sound collector
and amplify it.

Designed by gifted
physicist, Percy rothwell,

the first giant mirror
was constructed in 1928.

Lessons were quickly
learnt, a larger 30 foot mirror

built alongside the first one
was set at a different angle.

This one is a great deal deeper,

it is a true paraboloid and the
deeper you make the mirrors,

the more they concentrate sound.

This gave no advantage
in terms of range

but it could track the
trajectory of aircraft

with far greater accuracy.

Then in late 1930, they
went one step further.

The star of the show
was the long mirror,

this was 200 foot
long and 26 foot high,

by far and away the
largest structure of it's kind

ever created.

It wasn't just a
big wall of concrete

that you stood in front of,

it was actually a very
sophisticated scientific device.

The curved surfaces
concentrate sound waves

that bounce off the walls
to once fixed position

focusing the waves
on to a microphone.

The results were compared
with those from other mirrors

and used to calculate an aircrafts
height, speed and flight path.

An operator stationed
near the mirrors

used a stethoscope to try and
decipher the different noises.

A trickier task than it sounds.

While the sound mirrors
look basic or even crude,

actually operating them
was an incredibly skilled job.

The operator would have sat
about here, he's got a wheel

so he can move the sound
collector from side to side,

he's out of the weather and
away from any extraneous noise

and can concentrate even better
than standing out in the open.

To distinguish between the
sounds of different sorts of engines,

some aircraft, some
ship and other noise

was incredibly difficult work

and required such
focus and intensity

that operators could only
work in shifts of 40 minutes.

One of the limitations of
the acoustic technology

was of course it collected
and amplified all sound.

If there were
close up bird noises

that would often be collected
instead of the aircraft noise

that they were searching for.

To make the job even hard,

aviation technology was
developing at an extraordinary rate.

The new and higher
speeds of aircraft

that you're getting by the
late 1920s and early 1930s

and you're talking about
new callings, less drag,

powerful engines so your
speed is virtually doubled.

Zeppelins travelled at
about 60 miles an hour

and made a hell of a lot of noise
so they were very easy to track

but once you got on
further than early 1930s,

you've got aircraft travelling
at around 200 miles an hour,

you've got fighters travelling
at over 300 miles an hour

and so even if you can
get 12, 14, 15 miles warning,

you're only talking
about a couple of minutes.

With rise of fascism across
Europe during the 1930s,

the threat of another world
war was becoming very real.

In Nazi Germany, Hitler
was investing heavily

in his new airforce.

The other difficulty was
the immense advances

in aeronautical
technology under the Nazis.

The speed of aircraft
increased very rapidly

which meant that the
job of detecting in time

was increasingly difficult.

So you have relatively
little warning time

with a sound system but
the development of radar

has been coming at
a pace and it is ready

to take over just at the time
that aircraft are becoming too fast,

this new technology
has been developed

to the point that you can
emplace it along the British coast

and take over from
the sound detection.

Very soon after the
development and installation

of the acoustic mirrors,
radar as invented in 1935

and that was such a
futuristic technology

that it made the sound
mirrors instantly obsolete.

They look almost like some
kind of ancient monument

and in a way they are monuments,

they're monuments to
a defunct technology.

While the sound mirrors were
quickly rendered obsolete by radar,

they still had a role to play

and they would prove pivotal
during the battle of britain.

The skies over the
south east part of britain

were key battle grounds

when the onslaught by
the luftwaffe began in 1940.

Having assured Hitler

that his aircraft would be able
to bomb britain into surrender,

luftwaffe chief hermann
goring launched the campaign

that could perhaps should
have won the war for Germany.

The fighter planes of the raf

and the British coordinated
ground defences

somehow made
sure that it didn't.

You see it wasn't
just the technology

that was key in
the battle of britain,

it was the organisation
that was behind that.

All that radar did

was it gave much greater
accuracy and range

to an already existing
communication system

that went back to
those headquarters hubs

that coordinated the
ground and the air defence

that worked so well
and kept britain free

and saved the world in 1940.

Today these old devices sit
in a protected nature reserve

providing a fascinating
glimpse into a bygone era.

Although the mirrors are somewhat
inaccessible on these islands

and only opened to the
public once or twice a year,

that has a benefit of preserving
this little piece of history

which otherwise must
surely have perished.

So often after war,

the installations get torn
down and carted away,

here they've been preserved
as a kind of monument

to the ingenuity that britain
bought to defending itself.

Now they lie abandoned

but once they were the
cutting edge of engineering,

there are echoes of history
within these decaying structures.

They remind us of terror and war

but also of great innovation
and human endeavour.

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