Synopsis

High in the Snowdonia mountains of Wales, Michael Portillo arrives at an abandoned mine – a place where, during the anxious days of 1940, the wartime government planned a secure refuge for the National Gallery’s invaluable collection of art. He learns how, as invasion seemed increasingly likely, celebrated masterpieces were moved by train and lorry to be stored deep underground, hundreds of feet below ground level, within a natural granite bunker. At Tan y Bwlch, Michael encounters ‘Blanche’,