Historic UK nuclear testing island full of rare animals hiring new ferry driver
dailystar.co.ukwork as the ferry boat operator on the island that was used in the development of our nuclear weapons programme is being offered by the National Trust.The organisation is seeking an experienced sailor to look after boat operations on a tidal river, the Alde and the Ore, “including a 12-person passenger ferry, powerboat and rowing boat”, which includes the area around Orford Ness, a remote shingle spit off the Suffolk coast.The spit was used as a military test site during both World Wars and through into the dawn of the Cold War,The British nuclear weapons programme, then operating under the project name 'High Explosive Research' within the Ministry of Supply, established operations at Orfordness on April 1, 1950Between 1953 and 1966 the six large test cells and most of the other buildings on the shingle around them were built to carry out environmental tests on the atomic bomb.
These tests were designed to research the stresses that a weapon might be subjected before detonation, and included vibration, extremes of temperature, shocks and G forces.Although no nuclear material is believed to have been used in the tests, the high explosive component of the bombs was present and a test failure could easily have resulted in a catastrophic explosion.
For this reason the tests were controlled remotely and the huge labs were designed to absorb an explosion in the event of an accident.The Ministry of Defence sold the site to the National Trust in 1993.
It is now a nature reserve with animals including rare-breed sheep, Chinese water deer, and birds such as lapwing, marsh harrier and barn owl.
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