FEATURE DRAKELOW TUNNELS
THE TUNNELS GO DARK...
FOR THOSE OF US WHO HAVE PLAYED FOR MANY YEARS IN THE UK, ONE SITE BECAME SYNONYMOUS WITH ADRENALINISED AIRSOFT… “DRAKELOW”. BUT NOW, AFTER A LONG STRUGGLE, THE TUNNELS HAVE FINALLY GONE DARK. IOAN “IGGY” ROBERTS REMEMBERS HIS FIRST EXPERIENCE “UNDER THE HILL”.
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t’s with a heavy heart I have to say that the First and Only airsoft site known as “The Outpost” or “Drakelow Tunnels” is now closed. I have been there many times over the years and would just like to share some of my memories of this place as a tribute to how good it was. For those of you that don’t know Drakelow, the tunnels were a former underground complex built during the Second World War to manufacture aeroplane engines and then upgraded in the 1980’s to become a Regional Government HQ. The Tunnels were decommissioned in 1993 and sold into Private ownership and, although they were not sealed for a while and were subject to a measure of vandalism, the result was an atmosphere of cold, quiet, dark desolation. My first time there was 20 years ago. I had recently passed my driving test and I was able to drive my team to the site from North Wales. Anxious and excited we eventually found the location hidden away in the hills near Kidderminster, England. Following a 72
MAY 2021
short roadway, you walk into the site through a cut out in the rock and pass through a thick blast door into a corridor taking you deep under the hill. The safe zone is an allocated room just off the main corridor. We soon felt ready once we geared up, sporting our cheap tactical gear and TM G36s and P90s. I distinctively remember being in awe at the size of the site. Four parallel tunnels made up the main playing area, separated by a series of inter-connecting cross-tunnels and rooms. Some of these rooms still contained equipment used by the former incumbents, such as the kitchens, an old manual telephone exchange and a complete BBC Broadcast Studio. Transcripts pinned to the Studio wall made chilling reading, with details of the required broadcasts in the event of War. To further enhance the experience rat-runs and “mouse holes” had been knocked through some of the internal brick walls, making them ideal for “sneakybeaky” stuff. It was in these pitchblack tunnels where our team was trying to flank
