A villa in Tuscany or a farmhouse in France might be most people's idea of the perfect pied-a-terre. But Ged Dodd had something more unusual in mind when he bought his hideaway in the Yorkshire Dales. It wasn't just the unspoilt rural setting that attracted him, although the views are spectacular. What clinched it for him were the 12-inch thick reinforced concrete walls and the fact it was buried 15 feet below ground. 'It's a big boy's toy,' he says, unlocking the heavy steel hatch that is the only way in or out of his fully functional nuclear bunker. 'But in the end it isn't really a toy, because it really works.'

Dodd's bunker - in an isolated location he insists must remain strictly secret - is one of the last surviving examples of over 1500 that were built across the UK at the height of the Cold War during the 1950s and '60s. Manned by volunteers from the Royal Observer Corps, in which Dodd himself served, they functioned as observation posts from which nuclear explosions and radiation fall-out could be monitored in the event of an atomic attack. When the fall of the Berlin Wall heralded the end of the Cold War in 1991, however, the Ministry of Defence decided that there was no further need for the ageing bunkers. Many were removed or filled in by local councils, while others were left to the mercy of time and the elements.

That was the fate of this one until, early in 2003, it was put up for sale with several others on the Internet auction site Ebay. For Dodd, a self-professed clairvoyant who runs an aromatherapy oil business in Keighley, North Yorkshire, it was too good an opportunity to miss. 'I waited till the last ten seconds and then put my bid on,' he chortles. For a mere #11,300 (some of the other bunkers sold for over #20,000) he became the proud owner of what was then a derelict chunk of subterranean concrete.

But for Dodd the bunker was an investment rather than an indulgence. While the Cold War (which he insists the West ultimately lost), might be over, to his mind our post 9/11 world, with its constant threat of terrorist attacks, is no less dangerous. Accordingly, he has prepared the bunker as a secure bolt-hole for himself and his family, kitting it out against every conceivable emergency. Heavy-duty batteries provide electrical power, while CCTV cameras monitor the surface and an armoured telephone line and powerful ham radio provide communications with the outside world. There are even gas masks and Geiger counters, along with a year's supply of food and bottled water and a collection of board games to help pass the time until it's safe to emerge. 'Atomic war, tsunami, meteorite. My motto is forewarned is forearmed,' Dodd says, cheerfully. 'It's like insurance. Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.'

From the outside, the only indication of the bunker's existence is the heavy steel blast hatch, set in a squat concrete box. Once the hatch has been swung back, entry is via a steel ladder that descends 15 feet down a narrow concrete shaft. At the bottom a metal grid covers a sump from which water can be pumped outside: 'So you can sluice down anyone who's been contaminated with radiation,' Dodd explains.

Other than a small storage cupboard, which also houses a chemical toilet, the main area of the bunker consists of only a single eight by 15 foot room, into which Dodd has fitted four bunk beds and numerous cubby holes and shelves for storage. When he first bought the bunker it was so damp that he left footprints in the carpet of fungus covering the floor. 'There was a foot of cold air in the bottom. It felt like putting your hand into freezing water.' He solved that problem by installing a solid fuel stove, the chimney for which he made himself from mortar shell cases. 'It's lovely for making toast,' he says, settling himself down with a fresh brew of hot chocolate.

With the stove burning away, and the pink-painted walls decorated with military memorabilia, the bunker is actually quite cosy. Provided you don't mind the thought of being entombed in concrete over three metres underground, which Dodd clearly doesn't. 'I don't find it claustrophobic. It's like a womb to me. Comforting.'

He occasionally brings guests out here on what he describes as 'overnight exercises', but other than that most of his visits are solitary ones. Nowadays his wife, Sandra, a former member of the Royal Observer Corps herself, prefers hotels rather than bunkers. But Dodd seems happy enough coming out anyway, checking the bunker's equipment and making sure he's prepared for the day when the balloon finally goes up. 'This place will have got 40 miles of farmers with shotguns between me and the population of starving, unprepared townies,' he says with satisfaction. 'That's the ultimate protection.'

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