Man constructs secret bunker under manhole in garden in case of 'nuclear blast'

Dave Billings hopes to connect his home to underground bunkers via a 40ft tunnel (Image: Getty)

A British man has unveiled the astonishing underground construction project hidden beneath his back garden, concealed by a manhole cover.

Dave Billings, who lives on a former World War II army camp, has been documenting the progress on his YouTube and TikTok channels. Following years of building off-road race cars and Motorsport Roll cages, he embarked on a new endeavour – creating a 40-foot long tunnel that he claims is nearing completion, connecting a series of bunkers to his main property.

In a recent video, Dave could be seen descending through a narrow trapdoor and landing on a wooden wheeled pallet. As he panned his camera around the enclosure, he revealed both old and new bunkers while propelling himself deep along the underground tunnel.

The passage led Dave to a vast brick room, before he headed back to the old bunker and climbed a stone staircase, ultimately exiting the enclosure via a nearby well. Dave's claustrophobic followers quickly expressed their fears about the project, with one person admitting: "You are brave, I'm having a panic attack just watching you."

A second confessed: "This encases all my worst fears."

Meanwhile, a third agreed: "As you started going down my fear level went up, then even further when you laid down. Only peace was seeing the larger rooms on the end, but these tunnels are not for me."

Dave kicked off his unique project in December 2023, converting a shipping container into a survival bunker, reinforced with timber and concrete to ward off any potential collapse. The survivalist expressed the deeper challenges of post-apocalyptic living in his lair, however.

"It's one thing building yourself a bunker, but there's one more thing you've got to think about," he expained. "If the worst did happen and we had a big nuclear blast, how would you restart?" His solution is a comprehensive guidebook, which he boasts, "tells you how everything is made".

Dave elaborated on the contents: "Penicillin, surgery tools – it basically goes through how civilisation was made. But my favourite bit is how to make alcohol – because I think if you're going to survive a nuclear blast, you're going to need severe amounts of alcohol."

However, critics have thrown doubt on the practicality of Dave's approach, with one sceptic casting suspicion over the usefulness of the manual in a fallout scenario, quipping, "If a nuclear bomb was to be dropped, none of the natural things in that book would be any good for consumption. I suppose you could eat the book."

Another highlighted a flaw in Dave's strategy: "Unless you have all of the supplies listed in the book stored away in your bunker you're still not gonna survive. Eventually you'll run out of food and supplies and everything above will be radioactive."