Cold War Bunkers Birmingham: New Underground Tour Guide

Birmingham's newest tour guide spent 12 years working as a guard at HMP Birmingham on Winson Green Road. Now Gary Tomkins, 54, is leading small groups through a labyrinth of abandoned Cold War bunkers beneath the city's Jewellery Quarter, and bookings have already sold out for the first three weekends.

The launch comes as Birmingham's tourism sector pivots to hyper-local, niche experiences. According to Visit Birmingham's latest visitor economy report, walking tour bookings surged 37 percent between January and June 2026 compared to the same period last year. The city's traditional coach tours of Bullring & the Custard Factory have flattened, while underground and industrial-heritage routes have doubled in popularity. Tourists and locals alike appear hungry for stories that don't appear on postcards.

From prison blocks to radio rooms

The bunker network, known officially as the Birmingham Regional Seats of Government Complex, sits 40 feet below Great Hampton Street. Tomkins spent two years negotiating access with the city council and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which still owns the site. His tour, called 'Concrete Curtain', costs £28 per person and runs for 90 minutes. Groups are capped at eight people because the tunnels are narrow. Spaces for the July 24, 25 and 26 tours vanished within 48 hours of going online, Tomkins said.

He walks visitors past decommissioned teleprinter rooms, a former BBC broadcasting booth once used for emergency wartime announcements, and a reinforced radio mast that still stands on a patch of grass near the old Oozells Street School. The tour ends in a chamber that was designed to house the lord mayor and 12 council officials in the event of a nuclear strike. 'It smells of damp and old cable,' one recent attendee posted on a local history forum. 'But standing there, you realise how close we came to a very different Birmingham.'

A city of hidden layers

The bunker tour joins a growing roster of unconventional Birmingham experiences. The Birmingham Civic Society launched its 'Ghost Signs & Graffiti' walk in April, mapping faded painted adverts on buildings along Colmore Row and the Rag Market. Tickets cost £12, and the society says it has already run 14 sold-out walks. Meanwhile, the Lapworth Museum of Geology at the University of Birmingham offers a paid 'Urban Geology' trail that leads participants under the Aston Expressway to examine rock strata exposed when the road was cut through the city's Redditch sandstone geology in the 1960s. It costs £10.

Tomkins said he plans to add a second tour route next month that will explore a sealed-off tunnel under the old Birmingham Central Fire Station on Lancaster Circus. He's also in talks with the owners of the former GPO tower, currently being converted into a hotel, about adding a rooftop extension that contrasts the Cold War bunker's claustrophobia with a panoramic view of the modern city.

For anyone wanting to book, the Concrete Curtain website opens a new batch of tickets every Monday at 10 a.m. The July 31, August 1 and August 2 slots go on sale July 13. Tomkins warns that if the first weekends are any indication, they'll vanish faster than a siren in the tunnels.