Former NATO spy base for sale: Scottish 'Golf Ball' early-warning radar station can withstand nuclear or chemical attack

This Cold War landmark, just 30 minutes from Edinburgh, is on the site of what was RAF Balado Bridge, where Polish pilots trained on Hurricanes and Spitfires.
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In these troubled geopolitical times, a property with the potential to withstand nuclear, biological and chemical attack has a certain appeal.

Even better if it comes with an iconic local landmark, combining modernist design and Cold War retrofuturism.

The Golf Ball, in Kinross-shire, Scotland, is a now-inactive NATO spy base – or Intercontinental Ballistic Missile early-warning radar – built on the former Second World War airfield, RAF Balado Bridge, where Polish pilots trained on Hurricanes and Spitfires.

The disused Satcom satellite ground listening station and the nine acres of land it sits on is for sale for £950,000.

The brick-built main equipment building may be a little drab but it does come complete with an emergency power generator room alongside the accommodation block, which housed the station mess, recreation and office facilities.

It is connected to the 60ft white fibreglass golf ball – actually a radome housing a large dish antenna – by a corridor and doors built to withstand nuclear, biological or chemical attack.

The radome was opened by Princess Anne in 1985 and was used to intercept satellite communications – Russian ballistic missile launch orders, for example – for 20 years.

After it was decommissioned as a military listening post in 2006 it was bought by entrepreneur Bob Ferguson for just over £500,000.

There are two runways and a control tower, too.

The site also has garages, diesel tanks and a guardhouse with kitchen and toilet and the entire property is protected by a “burglar-proof” double layer security fence.

The annual T In The Park music festival was held on the airfield between 1997 and 2014, when it ended due to reported concerns about an underground pipeline.

Located a mile from Junction 6 of the M90, the airfield is just two minutes from the town of Kinross, with its shops and schools. Edinburgh is only half an hour’s drive away.

As the property listing says, this is “not your average development opportunity".

“The ultimate DIY challenge. A home worthy of Grand Designs. A slice of Cold War history. Or just to survive a Zombie Apocalypse?”

Between Trump, Brexit and global warming, this could be handier than we’d like to think.

On the market for £950,000 through Amazing Results.