Lady in Retirement,
You did mention in your reply that people living in that area like the fishermen etc never saw or heard anything about the place.
But then the camp was a secret base in that sense that no one was to know what took place in and around the base.
Just from personal experiences during World War2, I and many thousands of people walked daily past buildings for 5 years never knowing what actually happened in those buildings until after the war.
Some of the buildings were offices used by the German SD ,Gestapo holding and torturing prisoners and on many occasions murdering them inside the building.
Opposite one of those building housed a listening post operated by the Dutch resistance and was even used as a holding shelter for downed Allied air force crews. And there was no one, including the German SD and Gestapo, who had the slightest idea about this listening post until after the war.
In other words , what I am trying to explain is the fact that things can go on without any one knowing about what it is all about.
As a matter of fact how many of us and even those people living close by know exactly what is happening at Porton Down.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/inside-porton-down-britains-controversial-12192830 Dirk