William Penney directed bomb design from Fort Halstead . In 1951 his design group moved to a new site at Aldermaston in Berkshire . The first British atomic bomb was successfully tested in Operation Hurricane , during which it was detonated on board the frigate anchored off the Monte Bello Islands in Australia on 3 October 1952 . Britain thereby became the third country to test nuclear weapons , after the United States and the Soviet Union . The project concluded with the delivery of the first of its Blue Danube atomic bombs to Bomber Command in November 1953 , but British hopes of a renewed nuclear Special Relationship with the United States were frustrated . The technology had been superseded by the American development of the hydrogen bomb , which was first tested in November 1952 , only one month after Operation Hurricane . Britain would go on to develop its own hydrogen bombs , which it first tested in 1957 . A year later , the United States and Britain resumed nuclear weapons cooperation
Operation Hurricane
Operation Hurricane
High Explosive Research