Portillo's Hidden History of Britain

Michael Portillo unlocks the doors to four extraordinary abandoned locations. For almost a century, Orford Ness was owned by the MOD, a lens into a bygone era of secrets, spies and superpowers. When it closed in 1993, its buildings were still shrouded in secrecy.

Michael visits the beautiful, forbidding and now abandoned military hospital in the garrison town of Aldershot to uncover the pioneering work of reconstructive surgeons.

Michael Portillo visits a top-secret Cold War stronghold, just a mile from the Cambridge campus where he spent his university years. The bunker, formerly known as RSG-4, was built in 1953 to house 300 local government officials from Cambridgeshire in the event of a nuclear attack. The former politician is also given access to the decommissioned Soviet nuclear submarine U-475 Black Widow - currently moored at Strood on the River Medway - revealing how close the world came to a full-scale nuclear war.

Michael Portillo explores the history of the British seaside resort. He gets up close and personal with the ghostly skeleton of Brightons West pier, which has become one of the UKs most well known ruins. He meets Jo Berry, daughter of Conservative MP Sir Anthony Berry who was killed by an IRA bomb at Brightons Grand Hotel.