Thank you for visiting Part 1 of my "Secret Bases" Page at www.secret-bases.co.uk
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What makes a "Secret Base" secret? By "base", I mean those British Government installations or military sites you've seen surrounded by razor wire fences and guarded by Ministry of Defence (MoD) police. How on earth can these sites be secret? The UK Government hasn't (yet) developed stealth technology in the visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum. So they can't very well make, say, Faslane nuclear submarine base (pictured below) suddenly disappear as you come around the corner!
Having said that, in October 2007, the Sun newspaper revealed in an exclusive story that boffins at the Government's research wing QinetiQ had got together with Professor John Pendry's theoretical physics team at Imperial College, London to develop Harry Potter style "invisibility cloaks" for military equipment such as tanks.
As revealed back in May 2006, in scientific journals New Scientist and Physics World, the technology involves the development of special composite "metamaterials".
They have very unusual refractive properties that alter the propagation of light beams. It is thought that the latest top secret research is being carried out on behalf of the MoD at QinetiQ's Nanomaterials Division at Farnborough, Hampshire!
No, it's actually much simpler than all that! A Government laboratory or military base can be made to "disappear" by just deleting it from Ordnance Survey (OS) maps! But how? Well, you need to appreciate that OS is essentially a Government agency within the MoD. Just look-up the derivation of the word "ordnance"
and all will become clear.
Apart from straightforward deletion, another classic sign of "tampering" to look for on OS maps is the use of the rather uninformative labels "Works" or "Depot". This is sometimes an indication that a site has important Government and/or military activities. But why? Throughout the 1960s, Sir Martin Furnival-Jones, Director General of MI5 (the Security Service) during the Cold War, insisted that all sensitive sites be labelled on maps in this way, so their true strategic role would be concealed from potential enemy agents.
All inclusions on OS maps were once vetted by the UK Government's D-Notice Committee. You may have heard of this before. When the Government wanted to "gag" newspaper editors to stop them revealing embarrassing details about MoD-related stories, it was called "slapping a D-Notice" on them. Any locations on the "Sensitive Sites Register" were mysteriously removed from public maps by men in cigar smoke filled rooms in Whitehall and just ended up appearing as farmers' fields!
In February 2004, the Secretary of the D-Notice Committee, Rear Admiral Nick Wilkinson, contacted me to assure me that things have changed for the better and that the system has been overhauled in recent years. With the introduction of Internet-based mapping and aerial photography data, he insisted that the Committee is now an independent and purely advisory body. It is now known as the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee (DPBAC) and the D-Notices are now more correctly referred to as Defence Advisory (DA-Notices).
Alerted to the issues highlighted on this website, Mr. Wilkinson told me that Ordnance Survey's removal of MoD-related sites from their maps is no longer appropriate in today's Internet climate. He assured me that the fact that they still show sensitive sites as empty fields is because of the time lag between Ordnance Survey becoming aware of the new policy and their publication of new editions of the maps, rather than any sinister Government involvement.
Indeed, the high resolution aerial photography of Britain's "Secret Bases", offered for sale on the Internet by Getmapping plc, was cleared by Mr. Wilkinson. Even so, various defence analysts raised concerns, as detailed in a BBC News article. Getmapping's co-founder and MD, Tristram Cary, is a former Royal Navy officer and software project director in the defence industry.
In February 2007, the Landmark Group mapping company revealed that it had acquired top secret Russian military maps of UK Secret Bases! They had been compiled by the KGB throughout the Cold War years, from 1950 right up to 1997, using their own satellite imagery, making all the fuss somewhat pointless after all!
In June 2007, in a major update to Google Earth's UK imagery, most of the locations featured on this website became available at high resolution!
In December 2007, new hi-res aerial imagery was provided by Getmapping which covers the area around Faslane. Check out my special implementation of Microsoft Virtual Earth (right), which allows you to zoom in close-up to the Trident Missile Storage Bunkers, warhead handling facilities and much more!
On my "Secret Bases" Page, www.secret-bases.co.uk, I revisit themes explored on my Emmerdale Page and make further use of the Internet research tools outlined there to take you on a fascinating tour of Secret Britain:-
Follow my links by clicking on the bold references in blue like the ones above. As you hover over each link, it will be highlighted (assuming that your browser supports "Style Sheets"). When you click on a link, a new window will open. You may have to maximise the size of this window by dragging its edges so that it fills the screen. When you've finished browsing the links, close the newly-opened window to return to this page. If you've done your own further exploration within each link, you may need to do this several times. You may also need to close some pop-up advertisement windows when exploring these links.
If you discover any broken links, please report these to me using the email button at the bottom of this page. However, please bear in mind that if you find any links behaving in an unexpected manner, the particular website's server may be experiencing temporary problems.
Perhaps you would also like to try my other web pages by visiting my home page at:-
I have provided an index of subjects and key terms used on www.secret-bases.co.uk. You can visit my "Secret Bases" Index by just clicking on the button below. If you find what you're searching for there, you can be sure that I've covered it in reasonable depth in one of the four parts of www.secret-bases.co.uk!
I have provided a resumé of my media appearances and press coverage of my "Secret Bases" website in my Media Centre. You will also find full details on how to contact me for contributions, research assistance requests and media enquiries.
Upon hitting the GO! button below, this page will be refreshed with the new map link options you have chosen (or the default ones, if you first use the RESET button). If you have enabled "cookies" on your browser, the new settings will also be saved on your computer and will be retrieved when you access this page again. Furthermore, as you navigate between the four parts of the "Secret Bases" Page, your map link option settings will be preserved. The "cookie" only contains the date and time of your visit and your map preferences - nothing else.
Remember that the main body of this "Secret Bases" Page might read slightly differently when map links other than the default Multimap ones are selected. Additionally, certain map links have been fixed to use specific map source websites, in order to preserve continuity.
Try the latest options:
- "Multimap" – introducing many features from Google Maps, plus Ordnance Survey maps!
- "Google Maps aerial photo" – featuring the same imagery used on Google Earth!
- "Live Local aerial photo" – allowing you to zoom in close-up to Getmapping's imagery!
- "Google Earth KML placemark" – launches your Google Earth program and flies to the location!
NEW! In June 2007, in a major update to Google Earth's UK imagery, most of the "Secret Base" locations featured here became available at high resolution! Just change the map link option to "Google Maps aerial photo" or "Google Earth KML placemark" and refresh the page!
For full documentation on the map link options available, including IMPORTANT notes, just click on my Research Tools Page button also below.
There are some classic signs to look for on OS maps, when trying to find MoD related sites. You might see buildings which are geometrically shaped, like the Defence Procurement Agency (DPA) and Warship Support Agency (WSA) at
Abbey Wood in Bristol (pictured further below).
Some are made easy by actually labelling them "Government Offices" like the Defence Logistics Organisation (DLO) near Bath, on the site of an old country estate at
Ensleigh and also at
Fox Hill (both pictured further below). Of course, not all "Government Buildings" are "Secret Bases"! Many buildings labelled in this way are merely administration offices. Since a major restructuring in April 2007, DPA, WSA and DLO have been known as Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S).
The two Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) spy centre sites in Cheltenham at
Benhall and
Oakley don't at first stick out when viewed at 1:50000 scale. View Multimap's aerial photograph of GCHQ Benhall (further below) and notice the field just to the west of the main buildings. This is where the brand new GCHQ Doughnut complex (also further below) has been built.
Following the Doughnut construction at the Benhall site, most of the Oakley site has been demolished and the land has been handed over to a supermarket chain and housing development company. The old parts of the Benhall location have also been cleared and given over to the provision of additional car parking for the Doughnut and for housing development.
Until Summer 2006, if you went to the Get-a-map site and viewed
GCHQ Benhall and
GCHQ Oakley at 1:25000, the old facilities suddenly emerged as geometrically shaped buildings and were labelled "Government Offices". These more detailed 1:25000 OS maps have now finally been updated to reflect all of the demolition work and the new GCHQ Doughnut now makes an appearance! In March 2007, the GCHQ Doughnut finally made it to hi-res on Google Earth too!
NEWS EXCLUSIVE – August 2007
In August 2007, I discovered a supposedly "hidden", "members only" website called Room C3301 run by old retired GCHQ comrades, after they had provided a link to my own Secret Bases site! Strange but true! The "Room C3301" website is devoted to the former GCHQ employees' WJCAG club and carries the pre-2002 version of the official GCHQ crest.
The website's main page is called The Hatch. This is a clear reference to special document transfer windows (pictured below right) in security doors separating wireless operator rooms from cipher rooms – as found, for example, in the famous Cold War spy station at Teufelsberg in West Berlin, Germany [ map ].
But what about the meaning of "WJCAG"? One can only hazard a guess at the old "W" and "J" Divisions of GCHQ's Cryptanalysis Group, where "J" was in charge of SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) interception and "W" was responsible for final delivery of SIGINT "product" to "consumer".
They very kindly (but perhaps unwisely!) gave me a totally unsolicited plug in a link titled "Eye Spy" – perhaps a reference to my series of UK Secrets articles for that magazine. By luck, I detected the link with my special visitor tracker software.
I noticed they were advertising their 5th Reunion Party for "Cypher Grade employees, plus Q4 support personnel" to be held on Friday 14th September 2007 at the
Civil Service Club on Tewkesbury Road, Uckington, Cheltenham – just to the north of the GCHQ Doughnut.
The main website portal at www.wjcag.co.uk originally invited you to type in the "secret" code number (3301) of the Room, in order to access the supposedly "private" WJCAG club members' area.
However, within a matter of seconds, a simple Google search on "WJCAG" got me the individual "hidden" page that members were redirected to upon entering the correct passcode! How hilariously ironic that cracking the GCHQ code was so easy!
Not surprisingly, the code was hurriedly changed a few days later and the link to my site was removed, but I'd already made a copy of the contents. They later poked fun back with a worryingly accurate portrayal of me in a cartoon (above)!
Of special interest were the Contacts Page and the Archives Section which included huge photo galleries of previous reunions in October 2004 and May 2006, plus articles sent in from club members around the world. A member advertised the famous shop he now runs in the middle of Cheltenham dealing in military memorabilia, specialising in medals, badges and uniforms.
One contribution referred to the exhausting shift patterns at Oakley. A particularly fascinating page discussed a member's time spent at GCHQ's old Composite Signals Organisation (CSO) intercept station at the settlement of Two Boats Village on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean and another article fondly remembered the old days working at
Palmer Street.
The "Government Offices" at 6-8 Palmer Street, near Buckingham Palace in Central London, contain a GCHQ international wiretap and telex / fax / email intercept facility also known by the codename "UKC1000". It allegedly incorporates an Echelon Dictionary computer system up on the 4th Floor to scan for "hot" keywords!
NEWS EXCLUSIVE – April 2007
| As seen in "Secret Britain" – Eye Spy Magazine 49, July / August 2007 | © Blom ASA / Live Local |
In January 2007, a proposal for a brand new GCHQ "research and development" installation at the existing
Birdlip Radio Station on top of Shab Hill, Gloucestershire, was finally thrown out by Cotswold District Council's planning department after an appeal by GCHQ to the Planning Inspectorate was dismissed.
The council wanted to protect the nature of the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
The planning application had originally been lodged precisely one year earlier in January 2006 and the project involved the erection of additional tall lattice communications towers, including one with a huge "golf ball" radome on top.
It would have been identical to the one already installed in a
special enclosure on the west side of Birmingham International Airport, but which is merely used for ground radar (pictured top right in a Bird's Eye aerial photo).
The Birdlip signals station is in a perfect strategic position, in a direct line of sight with the GCHQ Doughnut at Benhall, a few miles away.
It has actually been used for various communications purposes since WWII, but the original wartime masts in the surrounding fields have long since gone, leaving only their rusted anchoring points in the ground.
Significantly, it is also very close to another relic from World War Two (and indeed the Cold War) – the famous hardened bunker at
Ullenwood, a former Anti Aircraft Operations Room (AAOR), Civil Defence Training Centre and Regional Government Headquarters (RGHQ).
The planning application had been made on behalf of GCHQ by global communications infrastructure consultants Alan Dick and Company Limited, who just happen to have their world HQ at a
depot known as "The Barlands", complete with its own array of telecoms masts ... to the south east of Cheltenham!
More recent users of the Shab Hill facility have included the Civil Aviation Authority (Air Traffic Control), National Grid (electricity network infrastructure maintenance), OFCOM (the Government's monitoring watchdog for general communications) and, of course, mobile phone network providers.
How intriguing it is to discover that one of the mobile network operators already using the Birdlip facility – O2 – has been awarded the Government contract to provide a Ground Based Network Resilience (GBNR) enhancement known as the National Fallback Service (NFS) to Airwave.
Airwave is the new encrypted secure digital radio system for all emergency services, which uses Motorola's Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) technology. It is part of the Government's Critical National Infrastructure (CNI).
The GBNR / NFS enhancement – due for delivery in Autumn 2007 – was requested after recommendations arising from the various communications failures at the time of the July 2005 London bus and underground tube train bombings. The original Airwave project was commissioned through the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO), which became part of the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) in April 2007.
O2 Airwave Limited applied to Cotswold Council in June 2006 for the addition of two extra communications dishes and associated control equipment on one of the lattice towers already on site at Birdlip. The initial request was for one 0.3m diameter dish and one 0.6m dish. Curiously, the request was later amended to two dishes both 0.3m in diameter. The O2 Airwave application was successful.
It would seem that GCHQ would legitimately require a connection into Airwave at Birdlip in order to provide the emergency "MACA" role – Military Aid to Civilian Authorities. But was GCHQ's so-called "experimental, testing, research and development" facility at Birdlip going to be wired into the O2 Airwave system for further purposes too?
Do you remember another "experimental" communications site for "research" in the 1990s? It was known as the Capenhurst Tower and the story surrounding that sent political shock waves around the world! Make sure you check out the full details on Secret Bases Part 4!
Was their cunning plan at Birdlip scuppered by a brave decision by Cotswold Council? Will GCHQ now go to the High Court for a further appeal and risk even more details getting out into the public domain?
Read the amazingly detailed documents forming the two separate GCHQ and O2 Airwave planning applications – including correspondence, technical drawings, photos and diagrams of how GCHQ's new upgrade to the Birdlip site would have looked.
They were published on the official website of Cotswold District Council and I have gathered them all together here in a new special Secret Bases page (right).
Take a look at all those documents and then try to figure out which location GCHQ might have to choose instead for their new "research facility".
Perhaps consider the famous sites of microwave towers and communications masts at
Cleeve Hill and
Churchdown Hill both near Cheltenham and at
Bredon Hill near Evesham, Worcestershire. Just a thought, mind!
Getmapping, the company providing the aerial photography for many Internet mapping web sites, has repeatedly announced improved resolution data - the flights for which were performed in 2002 and 2006. This new data is currently only available for a few selected towns and cities. As luck would have it, Cheltenham is one of those places!
Compare the images (below left to right, taken in 2006, 2002 and 1999). Note how a few of the old GCHQ Benhall buildings were demolished to make way for the Doughnut.
Since that original 1999 photo was taken, the old buildings at Benhall have now gone completely, as revealed on the Bird's Eye view from Windows Live Local (further below). At GCHQ Oakley, a similar Bird's Eye view now reveals that only the eastern end of the Priors Road site remains (for now). The western end nearest the main road has been totally cleared and the new Sainsbury's store is in its place.
© Archant |
In its June 2006 edition (right), Gloucestershire's glossy lifestyle magazine Cotswold Life even featured a large high quality aerial photo of the GCHQ Doughnut on its front cover with the banner headline, "Secret Sights – our 10 best buildings viewed from the air".
After WWII, GCHQ set up an "experimental radio station", a top secret research facility, on the site of the RAF's wartime airfield at
Blakehill Farm, Cricklade near Swindon, Wiltshire (pictured further below in a Pilot's Eye View, from my regular expert contributor). It was not too far away from GCHQ's new post-war HQ in Cheltenham. It consisted of huge communications masts arranged in mysterious strategic patterns in the middle of the old airfield and the site was still active in some capacity until the mid 1990s.
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Sign of the times at GCHQ's security perimeter fence
Mock-up of how a future warning sign might look like! |
In October 2005, GCHQ went into collaboration with Bristol University to set up a research facility known as the Heilbronn Institute. The 1970s inventor of the Public Key Encryption RSA algorithm – GCHQ expert Clifford Cocks – was awarded an honorary degree at the Institute in February 2008.
The team of around 30 researchers spend half of their time on personal projects and the rest is spent on secondment to GCHQ's Doughnut in Cheltenham. The Institute Director is world famous mathematician Professor Elmer Rees, based in Bristol University's Maths Faculty in the
Royal Fort House Annexe. The hi-tech hardware in the Computer Science department's new
Merchant Venturers Building obviously comes in handy.
The Deputy Director is a certain Richard Pinch who describes himself coyly as "a civil servant from Gloucestershire" on his personal website ... [archived].
However, his website reveals rather too much – considering he is a Senior Cryptographer at GCHQ! He details his countless Pure Maths research papers ... [archived], but gives his home address and telephone numbers too.
Full details on his wife Geraldine – an author and Egyptologist at Oxford University's Faculty of Oriental Studies – are also available ... [archived], along with a page devoted to their beloved cats ... [archived].
As if that wasn't enough, he details his neighbours living along the same road in Cheltenham! ... [archived]
It is a situation almost identical to the Spymaster with his own public website – the Government's new Chief of the Joint Intelligence Committee.
Perhaps one of the most secretive signals analysis bases in the UK is known as
RAF Boddington, but it's no use you trawling Getmapping's aerial photos of the area looking for deserted runways - grassed over or otherwise! Until very recently, the RAF's No. 9 Signals Unit was tucked away in the tiny hamlet of Barrow near Boddington in Gloucestershire, in a field next door to a farm. At least the guys didn't have far to go for their milk and eggs in the morning!
As technology for the transfer of military messages moved on, the facility became redundant. The RAF signals personnel vacated the site in December 2007, as announced by the MoD and a formal ceremony was held in the village.
RAF Boddington's secure SIGINT enclave, just a few hundred yards to the east of Barrow's village centre, is only distinguishable from the village's cottages and the surrounding outbuildings of Barrow House Farm by consulting the
1:10000 OS maps, but there's still no label.
In March 2007, RAF Boddington was at last featured in high resolution on Google Earth but the data was actually from 2005. It revealed that the central hardened surface building has what look like portals to underground bunkers. It is known that RAF Boddington is connected by some sort of communications link to GCHQ, which is just a few miles to the south east, over on the other side of the M5 motorway. It is thought that the GCHQ Doughnut at Benhall, Cheltenham is furnished with military SIGINT traffic from Boddington.
In newer imagery from Getmapping dated July 2006, major refurbishment work on "Building 2" at Boddington was shown in progress. It included the addition of many new air conditioning units on the roof, presumably for upgraded computer systems. The project is confirmed by the planning application on the local council's website.
While the MoD was announcing the apparent demise of RAF Boddington, aerial imagery of the site was telling a very different story! So although the RAF signals staff of 9SU left in December 2007, it seems GCHQ will be using Boddington for many years to come.
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Sometimes you can stumble upon interesting sites by accident.
Hanslope Park in Buckinghamshire looks like one of those stately homes you would pass on a Sunday drive out with the kids. It is designated "The Foreign and Commonwealth Office" (FCO) and that's the sign on the gatehouse to Park House, the original mansion. However, a
further look using the Get-a-map site reveals rather more than your usual country pile.
Hanslope Park was originally acquired by the Foreign Office at a time when Britain's Secret Service was in its infancy and GCHQ-type work was done at nearby
Bletchley Park, in the days of Alan Turing.
The
1:10000 scale map from MAGIC reveals the label "Wireless Station" and fields littered with countless aerial masts. However, these were dismantled in the 1990s to be replaced with state-of-the-art satellite communications (SATCOM) technology, leaving the sheep to graze in peace.
Hanslope has been massively expanded in more recent decades, under the title "Her Majesty's Government Communications Centre" (HMGCC). It now houses laboratories and electronic circuit board design workshops plus annexes full of communications equipment and the latest supercomputers – and we're not talking "Intel Pentium 5"! It also provides the storage base for the Foreign Office's huge archive of historical records.
HMGCC employs hundreds of experts – the equivalents of gadget man "Q" in the James Bond films – but they are busy developing micro-electronics, software and communications technology, rather than exploding cigar holders and Aston Martins with ejector seats, machine gun attachments and revolving number plates!
The facility is unique in that both electronic and mechanical disciplines and all phases of a project – from research and design, right through to manufacturing, final assembly and testing – are carried out on this one site.
The Foreign Office and HMGCC take up around 80% of the Hanslope Park estate (below). However, it is also home to MI6's Technical Security Department (TSD), staffed by SIS operatives who process and analyse data sent from GCHQ in Cheltenham and Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire, especially data intercepted from the foreign embassies in London. During the Cold War era, this function was known as the Diplomatic Wireless Service.
First, study Getmapping's imagery from 1999 in extreme close-up using Windows Live Local. Then take a look at a pilot's eye view of Hanslope Park (further below) taken in November 2006, courtesy of my regular expert contributor. Can you spot the difference?
Notice a brand new three storey office and computer block – reported to contain over 6500 square metres of floor space – under construction in the middle of the estate, on a former car park. The huge blue crane was a giveaway!
This construction project, valued at £30 million, is the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's new ICT Building – Information and Communications Technology. The IT staff, currently housed in various temporary accommodation at Hanslope, were due to move into the new ICT Building at the end of 2007, but it was delayed by several months.
In early January 2008, new Bird's Eye imagery of the area just south of Hanslope was made available that had been filmed in Summer 2007. By fluke, along the northern edge of the coverage boundary, the new ICT made a partial appearance (further below)!
In 2005, the FCO signed a record-breaking £190 million, seven-year contract with Hewlett Packard (HP) to provide the hardware and software for the next generation of the FCO's secure global IT desktop infrastructure, code name: "Future Firecrest".
The FCO's internal costs bring the total project value to more than £320 million – the largest contract ever signed by the UK Foreign Office. The system will be managed centrally from the new ICT Building at Hanslope Park, where hundreds more FCO staff from central London will be relocated at the end of the project in 2012.
In the far distance of the new Pilot's Eye aerial photo, you can make out Hanslope village itself and the church, St. James the Great, a Grade 1 listed building with the tallest spire in Buckinghamshire. Over in the far top right corner, the M1 motorway passes by.
In the grounds, you can clearly identify microwave dishes attached to a tall steel lattice tower, a green radome and a white satellite dish (also shown in the official website picture below). Also visible are tennis courts, a running track and a helicopter landing pad. However, you can also identify the double ring fenced security perimeter, covered on all angles by extensive floodlighting and CCTV cameras, complete with a very substantial rear vehicle access barrier.
| HMGCC Hanslope Park – © Crown Copyright |
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As with all sensitive items on my website, the publication of the new exclusive imagery was officially cleared in advance by both the Security Service (MI5) and SIS (MI6), through the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee (formerly D-Notice).
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Pilot's Eye view of the new ICT Building at HMGCC Hanslope Park |
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An intelligent and innocuous guide to using the web resources already online ...
