"Secret Base" locations revealed - Part 4 of 4!

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RAF Menwith Hill and RAF Fylingdales

The infamous RAF Menwith Hill (below) in North Yorkshire, near Harrogate, has never been an RAF airfield and isn't actually run by the RAF. It used to appear on OS maps as just a cluster of aerial symbols. It is owned and staffed by the NSA, America's National Security Agency and they refer to it as Station F83.

During the Cold War, Menwith Hill was legitimately used as an early warning station - linked to RAF Fylingdales - to track ballistic missiles.

RAF Fylingdales wasn't shown on 1:50000 scale OS maps until a major revision was launched in July 2006. Until then, you had to go to the more detailed 1:25000 scale data to finally reveal RAF Fylingdales (also pictured below) and it is actually on top of Snod Hill rather than Fylingdales Moor, but the name "RAF Snod Hill" just wouldn't have worked somehow!

It is curious that, since the end of the Cold War, Menwith's "golf ball" radomes have actually multiplied like rabbits. The old "golf balls" at Fylingdales were dismantled many years ago, to be replaced by state of the art Phased Array Radar (PAR) units (pictured further below). The three-sided concrete plinth (thereby giving 360º coverage), upon which these PAR units are mounted, can clearly be seen on Multimap's aerial photo.

Nowadays, Menwith Hill is actually labelled on the latest OS maps as "Menwith Hill Camp", making it sound like an innocuous barracks full of harmless squaddies. In reality, Menwith Hill is used to intercept communications in conjunction with GCHQ.

Because it was originally illegal for GCHQ to spy on its own UK citizens, this problem was easily circumvented by having the US owned Menwith Hill do the dirty work for them. Because of this US control, British MPs trying to ask questions in Parliament about the base just came up against a brick wall. With the introduction of recent far-reaching Acts of Parliament, handing more powers to both GCHQ and MI5, virtually anything goes!

On the subject of squaddies, just east of the Menwith camp, on the road into Harrogate, there's the Army Foundation College. It is the centre for junior soldier induction training, split between the sites of the old Uniacke Barracks (south of the road) and Hildebrand Barracks (north) on Penny Pot Lane.

While in Yorkshire, take a look at the centre of York itself. On Fulford Road you'll find Imphal Barracks. More squaddies, you think. But look beyond the razor wire fencing and to the rear of the site, you can find the Defence Vetting Agency where extensive background checks on applicants to MoD related jobs are performed and detailed records are kept.

Interestingly, right next door to Menwith Hill, the DCSA have another base which they refer to as HMS Forest Moor. It is responsible for routing communications for the Royal Navy. The OS 1:50000 series map shows HMS Forest Moor as a tell-tale geometrically shaped building, but is not labelled. Up to the end of 2004, if you went to the 1:25000 OS map, the building disappeared! If you tried the Government's MAGIC interactive mapping website and checked the 1:10000 scale map, HMS Forest Moor reappeared and the empty "farmer's fields" immediately to the south suddenly sprouted a forest of aerial masts, fully labelled. Now that's what I call MAGIC!

Indeed, as if by magic, in November 2004 the online version of the 1:25000 scale map from the OS Get-a-map website suddenly started showing HMS Forest Moor in all its glory with a cluster of aerial mast symbols, as detailed on the 1:10000 map!

The old Royal Navy centre next to the road has now been abandoned and is currently being considered by property development companies. One such company has applied to Harrogate Council for planning permission to convert the administration and accommodation blocks for HMS Forest Moor into a medium security mental health hospital.

Meanwhile, the newly updated 1:25000 map also finally revealed what seems to be the DCSA's control building for the aerial farm to the south of the road, which is unaffected by any future plans for the main HMS Forest Moor site.

It has been widely suggested that both the DCSA and GCHQ have operatives working on covert signals interception projects within Chetwynd Barracks at Chilwell near Beeston, Nottingham. At first sight though, this base would apparently just be part of the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency (DSDA) network. Chetwynd was also used as a major training and mobilisation centre for the war in Iraq.

Other key DCSA communications facilities can be found at Inskip, near Preston in Lancashire, at Anthorn on the Solway Firth coast in Cumbria and at Crimond on Scotland's Aberdeenshire coast between Fraserburgh and Peterhead, next to the St. Fergus North Sea Gas Terminal. One of the main communications masts at DCSA Crimond is shown below, in new aerial photography from Getmapping released in Summer 2005.

Predictably, both of the DCSA Inskip and DCSA Crimond sites are labelled "Disused Airfields" on 1:25000 scale OS maps! Anthorn is not labelled at all, although it is a former Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) and now forms part of the network of communications sites tracking the UK's Trident submarine fleet.

In early 2006 it was announced that from April 2007, Anthorn was also going to take over the transmission of the UK's accurate time signal using atomic clocks. Since 1927, the signal had been transmitted from the Rugby site in Warwickshire, which in more recent decades had also been part of the MoD radio network tracking submarines carrying the nuclear deterrent.

If the US Government wants to perform commercial espionage in Europe, then it's easy - just use Menwith Hill. The scandal surrounding the Airbus contract a few years ago, confirmed Menwith Hill's role in this murky world. The communications involving the bidding process by the various companies vying for the contract were intercepted by the NSA at Menwith Hill. The details were passed directly to the US Government, who then made sure their own US companies were furnished with this "insider knowledge". Thus, the US companies mysteriously landed the contract!

This scandal and the Echelon system of communications eavesdropping centred around Menwith Hill have been extensively documented by Duncan Campbell - an author, investigative journalist and TV producer and one of the world's most authoritative independent experts on SIGINT (signals intelligence).

In a court case involving women peace campaigners a few years ago, a blundering British Telecom official accidentally revealed in open court that those nice BT engineers had connected fibre optic cables into Menwith Hill from their own communications site at nearby Hunters Stones. These cables are said to provide the Menwith Hill base with over 100,000 UK telephone lines.

Menwith Hill does perform important work in counter-terrorism. The telephone calls between the terrorists plotting the "9/11" (September 11th 2001) hijackings were picked up by operatives at Menwith Hill. Tragically, by the time the masses of data had been assembled, passed to GCHQ for analysis and decoded by "spooks" at MI5, the World Trade Centre's Twin Towers and all their occupants had been turned to dust.

After the attempted repeat wave of London bombings of 21st July 2005, following the original atrocities of 7th July, one of the alleged terrorists was tracked all the way to Rome by GCHQ/MI5 operatives working closely with Menwith Hill, by plotting his mobile phone intercepts.

In an amazing revelation, 19th century maps of the area show that the base is built directly above large disused quarry workings. So it seems that many of Menwith Hill's activities are buried underground in many levels of secret blast-proof bunkers and tunnel networks!

British Telecom seems very keen to keep its chums in MI5 and GCHQ happy. BT's massive research laboratory at Martlesham Heath, near Ipswich in Suffolk, routinely takes apart all new communications equipment that is produced so that "spooks" know precisely how to hack into them! At BT's "switching centre" located in the Shropshire town of Oswestry, GCHQ is handed phone tapping opportunities on a plate.

The 1999 "GCHQ / BT / BNFL Capenhurst" story

In Summer 1999, Duncan Campbell helped to break to an astonished world an original investigation by Richard Lamont which revealed that GCHQ had hidden top secret telephone intercept equipment within a curious tower on the site of British Nuclear Fuels Limited's (BNFL) uranium enrichment plant at Capenhurst, Cheshire.

The tower (pictured below), which looked like a cross between an industrial chimney and a children's helter-skelter without the slide, was over 150ft tall and was built in the late 1980s.

The Capenhurst Tower was installed by GCHQ to scoop up all telecommunications between the UK and the Irish Republic from 1989 until 1998.

The microwave beam from the BT cable under the Irish Sea, originated at BT's microwave towers at Holyhead on the Isle of Anglesey.

It continued through the BT towers at Gwaenysgor near Prestatyn in North Wales, Pale Heights near Kelsall in Cheshire on the edge of Delamere Forest and at Sutton Common near Macclesfield, Cheshire. It then joined up with the rest of the network down to the world famous landmark BT Tower in London (further below).

It was noticed that by fluke, the microwave beam between the Gwaenysgor and Pale Heights towers also went right through the BNFL Capenhurst site and so bingo! GCHQ were in business. Try joining the dots on a map (further below) to see what I mean!

The tower was crammed with electronic eavesdropping equipment on many floors. It was fitted with special dielectric windows which didn't allow light in, but which allowed microwave transmissions to pass through. The microwave beam was broken down into individual telephone channels and the conversations were fed into Echelon computers which scutinised them for "hot" keywords and "watched" telephone numbers. It has been suggested that the tower was also fitted with satellite communications equipment on the top floor, so that all the data could be passed on to Menwith Hill and GCHQ in Cheltenham for further detailed analysis.

It is thought that neither BT nor BNFL were actually aware of the GCHQ workers' activities right under their noses! Indeed it has been reported that GCHQ operatives even brought the equipment to the site in vehicles dressed in BT livery!

After the telecoms system for the Irish Republic was changed, the Capenhurst Tower was then made redundant anyway and GCHQ had to make other arrangements! The tower was finally demolished in 2004 but it is pictured in the centre of the aerial photo below, which was shot by Getmapping in 1999.

For the definitive account of the original research and investigation into the GCHQ Tower at BNFL Capenhurst, visit Richard Lamont's website:-

• www.lamont.me.uk/capenhurst/

Another very important spy centre can be found at the unassuming location of Irton Moor, near the quaint seaside town of Scarborough. Back bench MPs in successive governments have failed gloriously in trying to find out precisely what goes on at this base, which MI5/6 operatives refer to as simply "Scarborough".

The 1:25000 OS map gives the full detail and labels it with the rather romantic title "Wireless Station". It dates back to the very early pre-WWII days of GCHQ, when that was known as the Government Codes and Ciphers School (GC&CS). Irton Moor is sometimes referred to as a Composite Signals Organisation (CSO) station.

Irton Moor spy base opened in 1943 on the site of the old Scarborough Racecourse. It replaced an earlier naval wireless station at nearby Sandybed Lane in Falsgrove, which is where St. Augustine's Roman Catholic School is now sited. In 1941, the Sandybed station intercepted secret signals between the German battleship The Bismarck and its HQ in Berlin. This enabled its position to be calculated and British forces then attacked. Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent a personal message of thanks to the Sandybed staff for their efforts that contributed so greatly towards sinking The Bismarck.

In the 1980s and 1990s, GCHQ Irton Moor was upgraded significantly and the Bird's Eye view below reveals a new hardened underground bunker on the base's north east side.

Before leaving the bracing Scarborough seaside air behind, take a look at some "farmers' fields" a few miles to the south of the Irton Moor spy base. Click on the OS 1:50000 scale map of the location (pictured below) to zoom into the fields.

Click again to try the more detailed 1:25000 map and keep on clicking to check out the aerial photos!

What emerges from those fields turns out to be RAF Staxton Wold, claimed to be the oldest radar facility in the world. Today, it still forms a key part of the UK's airspace defence network. If you want an even closer look, the main gate to the radar site sits right on the path of the famous Yorkshire Wolds Way walking route!

Another old UK airspace defence radar site hiding in farmers' fields can be spotted in Norfolk at RAF Neatishead, near the popular Norfolk Broads town of Wroxham.

Still in the North East of England, most people in the area will be familiar with the helicopter search and rescue (SAR) base at RAF Boulmer near the historic town of Alnwick in Northumberland.

However, take a step back, consult the 1:25000 map (pictured below) and consider the little village of Lesbury just south west of the helicopter SAR base. On the northern outskirts of the village, you'll stumble upon yet another of those high security SIGINT enclaves (pictured below) that you'll now be an expert in spotting!

The Lesbury site houses one of the United Kingdom's Air Surveillance and Control System (ASACS) Centres and also the RAF's School of Fighter Control. An additional Remote Radar Head (RRH) is located high up on Alnwick Moor at Brizlee Wood (also pictured below).

If you travel north on the GNER trains along the east coast main line between London King's Cross and Edinburgh, the big white radome at the centre of the Lesbury SIGINT site can be spotted high up on the hill over to the right, as you pass through Alnmouth Station.

Further north on the same journey, look out to the right again for another radome alongside the train tracks - this time at the "disused airfield" at Brunton. This signals unit liaises with the Electronic Counter Measures and Warfare Tactics Test Range at RAF Spadeadam, as discussed fully in "Secret Bases" Part 2.

A similar Remote Radar Head also performing an ASACS role can be found at RAF Trimingham at Beacon Hill near Cromer on the Norfolk coast (pictured below in one of my exclusive Pilot's Eye Views). It is a very old radar station originally dating back to 1941 and is now connected into the air defence network between Boulmer and Neatishead.

Following on from Irton Moor, the Composite Signals Organisation (CSO) has two other important outposts. One is on the rugged coastline of Cornwall, just south of Morwenstow at Lower Sharpnose Point near Bude. This "Wireless Station" provides extra intercept capability for GCHQ. Go to Multimap's site to view the aerial photo of GCHQ/CSO Morwenstow.

The other CSO site is deep inside English cider country, south of Taunton, Somerset, at the tiny hamlet of Culmhead near Churchstanton and has been apparently closed down. Again, this "Wireless Station" has provided additional intercept capacity for GCHQ. Go to Multimap's site to view the aerial photo of GCHQ/CSO Culmhead. Most of the aerial mast assemblies at Culmhead have now been removed but it is believed that a few remotely controlled listening antennae remain! The address search facility on the Royal Mail website discreetly lists the secret base as simply "Cipher House, Culmhead, Taunton"!

Cipher House and other buildings in the centre of the Culmhead SIGINT site have now been converted into the Culmhead Business Centre. One company operating from there is an inkjet printer cartridge supplier.

All the CSO sites at Irton Moor, Morwenstow and Culmhead have been inextricably entwined with the US Government's NSA.

Before leaving that scenery in the South West of England, consider the airbase at RAF St. Mawgan near Newquay in Cornwall. This base is under threat of closure due to defence budget reviews which would also impact on Newquay's civilian airport next door, which relies on the military presence for fire cover and air traffic control.

RAF St. Mawgan has a major Cold War secret hidden underground in a huge bunker network, partially camouflaged by the airbase's secondary runway routes. The OS 1:50000 map of the area (pictured further below) shows nothing of particular significance but the 1:25000 series map shows some mysteriously empty fields. The 1:10000 map, courtesy of the Government's MAGIC service, reveals the true detail including what appears to be a blast door entrance to a bunker.

Further research reveals an interesting entry under RAF St. Mawgan's post code of "TR8 4HP" - an address simply listed as "JMF". The modern aerial photos corresponding to that address entry, seem to confirm the position of the bunker blast door entrance.

Click on the map image below to zoom into the highlighted area and you'll be presented with RAF St. Mawgan's Joint Maritime Facility (JMF) - a huge underground US/UK Navy "listening" bunker, which has been responsible for tracking submarines and surface ships out in the North Atlantic ocean. The JMF is sometimes also referred to as the Terminal Exchange Building (TEB).

Another interesting address entry for that post code is "US Navy Weapons Facility", whose position is marked at the base's high security entrance on the south side of the runways.

Another Cold War US Naval Facility, similar to RAF St. Mawgan's JMF, tracking Atlantic ship and submarine movements, was until 1995 based on the Pembrokeshire heritage coastline in South Wales next to RAF/RNAS Brawdy. That old Royal Navy Air Station (RNAS) at Brawdy is now described on OS maps as a "disused airfield". It is no surprise therefore that the base still has significant military presence, now in the form of the Army's Electronic Warfare Unit - No. 14 Signals Regiment at Cawdor Barracks.

Since the US Navy's departure from the tracking station at Brawdy, their site has been turned into the Brawdy Business Park. The site's buildings have been rented out to various small businesses. The US Navy's large high security Terminal Building (allegedly fitted with "electromagnetic eavesdropping" counter measures) has apparently been cleared of all its technical equipment and has been renamed St. Davids House - earmarked for future development.

Cold War nuclear command bunkers get a new lease of life!

In 2005, Symantec – the world's leading Internet security company, famed for its anti-virus software – acquired an old decommissioned Cold War nuclear command bunker 50 miles south west of London in the Hampshire countryside and established its European Security Operations Centre (SOC).

It played a key part in providing Symantec's global monitoring services and also supported the company's European managed services customers.

As explained in a special feature in the Guardian newspaper and in a detailed report plus photo gallery on ZDNET.co.uk, teams of security analysts worked 12-hour shifts sitting at computer screens, monitoring global security vulnerabilities (viruses, worms and trojans, etc.) and also keeping an eye on TV news feeds for relevant political stories.

The Symantec SOC bunker (pictured below in a special Bird's Eye aerial photo) can be found in a field alongside a single track road, Watley Lane, which heads south east out of the village of Twyford between Winchester and Southampton. A huge underground reservoir is immediately adjacent, operated by Southern Water.

In stark contrast to this secluded rural location, consider Symantec's UK headquarters just outside London on a brand new technology park alongside the M4 motorway at Reading in Berkshire, next to the football club's Madejski Stadium.

In June 2007, in a surprising news development, Symantec announced that it had actually already outgrown its Twyford bunker and had relocated UK SOC operations to the new Reading HQ site. The Twyford bunker was then advertised on the open market by land operators Southern Water in a glossy brochure by sales agents Turner and Partners. However, the bunker was suddenly removed from the February 2008 auction when a mystery buyer approached Southern Water privately!

• Twyford Bunker Brochure  [PDF]

Five other Symantec SOCs are located around the world in Sydney, Tokyo, Munich and two in USA: one at San Antonio in Texas and one within Symantec's main offices at 2800 Eisenhower Avenue, Alexandria, Virginia.

Perhaps with greater significance in our everyday lives, underground bunkers are also used by huge banking corporations to store backups of customer records and daily financial transactions. One magnificent example can be found between Sheffield and Barnsley in the former mining community of Tankersley. Take a look at HSBC's (formerly Midland Bank) South Yorkshire National Data Centre (SYNDC) within Tankersley's Wentworth Business Park.

The secure ring-fenced hardened computer centre – completed back in 1981 at a cost of £40 million – is mostly hidden underground with just the surface entrances showing. The numerous ventilation funnels surrounding the site have led the locals to nickname it "Teletubbyland", as they resemble the voice trumpets on the children's TV show! It can be seen on Google Earth at high resolution but even better, it is available on Windows Live Local as a superb Bird's Eye view (shown further below).

Still in Yorkshire, another example can be found built into a hillside between Halifax and Sowerby Bridge. It is known as the Halifax Bank of Scotland's (HBOS) Copley Data Centre.

Another former top secret UK Cold War Regional Government Headquarters (RGHQ), hidden deep inside a bunker underneath the Lincolnshire Wolds near Skegness, got a fascinating new lease of life in Summer 2005 following two years of refurbishment work.

As reported by BBC News at the time of the sale in 2003, the decommissioned emergency command bunker - for use by military chiefs of staff and Government officials in the event of nuclear war - was snapped-up for £400,000 by a specialist computer data security company, Centrinet, with its global operations centre in Lincoln. If the bunker had been built today from scratch, the cost would have easily exceeded £20 million!

The company wanted to use the massive facility to keep their clients' sensitive data safe from threats such as TEMPEST and Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack, as described in one of my UK Secrets series of articles for Eye Spy Magazine. Centrinet's client list is reported to include airlines, banks and government departments in more than 40 countries worldwide.

Centrinet's main HQ is located on a brand new industrial park in Lincoln, yet to appear on many maps. However, the "secret" location of their TEMPEST-proof secure data bunker has been revealed to be the old Cold War RGHQ at RAF Skendleby, between the towns of Spilsby and Alford.

The only things at ground level to give the game away are the substantial fence surrounding the site, the tall communications mast and the classic "bungalow" style guard room, containing a blast door entrance to the bunker access tunnel. Adding to the intrigue is a surface mound, dotted with air intakes and exhaust outlets, plus the original WWII ROTOR radar installation next door, all shown in pictures below!

Centrinet's activities are described firstly in general terms on their corporate website, but you can also take a fascinating "virtual reality" walk-through tour of the data bunker on their more specific website which promotes SmartBunker™ - "the most secure data centre in the United Kingdom".

In 2000, enthusiasts from Subterranea Britannica (SubBrit) managed to secure an "access all areas" site visit (for members only) after the MoD had decommissioned the bunker, but before it had been acquired by Centrinet. A full report can be found on SubBrit's official website together with photographs of the old equipment and facilities, before Centrinet's high-tech makeover introduced row upon row of Internet server racks.

Another old MoD bunker from the Cold War era in rural Kent was disposed of following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In an almost identical operation to Centrinet's, the EMP and TEMPEST protected rooms deep beneath the old radar station at RAF Ash – actually in the adjacent village of Marshborough near Sandwich – were purchased by the mysterious AL Digital Telecoms company.

The "AL" turned out to be Adam Laurie, the entrepreneur behind the development (with brother Ben, the original writer) of Apache SSL - one of the world's most famous Internet server systems. It utilises the Secure Sockets Layer technology used for web-based financial transactions.

Adam and Ben Laurie have transformed their telecoms company into The Bunker™, which provides a secure data centre along the same lines as that of Centrinet. Whilst their primary data centre is at the RAF Ash site, a secondary one is situated in the hardened command bunker within the former USAF/RAF Greenham Common airbase near Newbury in Berkshire, most of which has been converted into the New Greenham Park industrial estate.

Incidentally, right next door you can still spot the old Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM) Alert and Maintenance Area (GAMA) - specially constructed silos designed to (hopefully) withstand both nuclear and conventional direct strikes.

Yet another ex-MoD bunker in a "safe" rural location at RAF Bawdsey, an old radar station near Woodbridge and Felixstowe in Suffolk, was also purchased by AL Digital and considered for use as a third "server farm", but the current status of this is unclear. Check out some Pilot's Eye views taken by my specialist contributor in October 2007 further below!

Significantly, Adam's and Ben's father Peter Laurie is the author of the classic 1970s book "Beneath the City Streets". Yes, you guessed right, it details secret Cold War nuclear bunkers and emergency Government crisis control centres!

Amazingly, four former Cold War nuclear command bunkers and Regional Seats of Government have now been turned into famous tourist attractions with museums and guided tours by prior appointment. Three can be found in England and one in Scotland.

The English examples can be found at Acomb in York, Kelvedon Hatch between Chelmsford and Chipping Ongar in Essex and at Hack Green, alongside the Shropshire Union Canal near Aston, Nantwich, Cheshire. The Hack Green bunker is actually also used by Nantwich Internet Service Provider (ISP) C2 Internet as its Network Operations Centre. The Acomb bunker is owned by English Heritage and is in the middle of a York housing estate!

The bunkers at Kelvedon Hatch and Acomb can both be spied on from above in impressive Bird's Eye aerial photos from Windows Live Local (further below).

Rather ironically, considering their history, Hack Green and Kelvedon Hatch are now both marked on OS maps with the special label "Secret Bunker" and even have road signs pointing the way (right). How times have changed!

Scotland's Secret Bunker can be found masquerading as a farmhouse at Troywood in Fife's East Neuk between St. Andrews, Anstruther and Crail and it is now marked on maps a little more discreetly as "Museum"!

You can view the Troywood location in a stunning close-up of Getmapping's aerial photography (shown right, reduced) by using Windows Live Local. It shows the guardhouse entrance (now used for the Cold War museum) and you can even make out the earth mound covering the bunker and the air intakes and emergency exit on the surface!

BBC TV Horizon experiments: sensory deprivation bunker!

Just in case you were wondering where those bizarre psychological experiments were carried out on BBC TV's Horizon documentary "Total Isolation" in January 2008, here's the answer!

It was all filmed back in Summer 2007 deep underground within the old decommissioned RAF Bentley Priory bunker to the east of the main mansion, at Stanmore Common, Middlesex near London.

New Typhoon Eurofighter weapons arming compound!

NEWS EXCLUSIVE – December 2007

In late 2007, many excited readers and forum message board members contacted me convinced that they'd discovered a previously uncharted Cold War nuclear bunker also in Lincolnshire (previous section above). After some routine research I came up with even more interesting findings.

Discussions had centred on a very high security fenced-off area on the south west side of RAF Coningsby – new home to the Typhoon Eurofighter jets. I noticed that it isn't marked on ANY Ordnance Survey map scales, even the most detailed 1:10000 data.

Then I compared Getmapping's imagery from 1999 and 2004 (below). Bingo! The earlier imagery just showed an empty farmer's field! The newer imagery (now also seen on Google Earth) confirmed that the facility is a "new build". It is a special compound that has been built OUTSIDE the previous established perimeter line (the fence now having been extended and diverted).

The obvious mounded blast protecting revetment walls suggest that it is a weapons arming and disarming complex for the new Typhoons, plus a likely training facility for the Fast Jet and Weapons Operational Evaluation Unit (FJWOEU) also based at Coningsby.

Those Lincolnshire forum members still wanting to find bunkers won't be too disappointed at RAF Coningsby though. Just take a look over on the far north east side. Nothing interesting on the map? Switch to aerial view!

Hidden in all that foliage – known as Black Holt – is Coningsby's Remote Weapons Store, connected to the main airbase site by a track. Note how the OS map data has changed in recent years (right) and the latest 1:50000 and 1:25000 scales now hint at something suspicious in there! As so often, the 1:10000 data finally tells the full story!

Carry on to the end of Secret Bases Part 4 for more of the same!

Sometimes, "Secret Bases" are right under your nose in the most obvious locations - like on industrial estates in the middle of cities! Consider Elmwood Avenue in Feltham, South West London. Right in the middle of all those industrial units, you'll find the Defence Geographic and Imagery Intelligence Agency (DGIA) which "does exactly what it says on the tin"!

At DGIA Feltham, experts in both traditional and digital cartography and aerial photo interpretation provide essential backup to all military services but especially the RAF.

The HQ of the Agency is at that industrial estate in Feltham but there are important outposts at RAF Brampton in Cambridgeshire and at Denison Barracks at Hermitage near Newbury, Berkshire (often spelt Dennison).

Sometimes, "Secret Bases" have much more innocent uses than their names suggest. For example, look at Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire - a town normally associated with the manufacture of pork pies!

To the north west of the town, you'll find the Defence Animal Centre (DAC), split over two main sites, north and south of Welby Lane. The southern site was actually the old Royal Army Veterinary Corps HQ and the Army's last Remount Depot. A little further east, at the end of Elmhurst Avenue, you can see the associated military personnel camp and further south, in the town centre, there are some offices used by Glendale, the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) facilities management company for the DAC.

All the Melton Mowbray sites turn out to be associated with the training of dogs (and horses too) for MoD and other military and government use. Of course, primarily, the dogs are trained in the search and identification of ammunition, explosives and drugs.

• www.defenceanimalcentre.co.uk
  
  
• www.glendale-services.co.uk/services/services-facilities.htm

Several enthusiastic readers of my website contacted me in 2005 to ask me what I thought of some curious buildings in Kidbrooke, South East London (pictured below). They raised suspicions because not all maps showed them and when they did, they were never labelled. Furthermore, they follow that classic geometric layout, typical of Government and MoD buildings. They are tucked away beyond the end of a new housing estate on Nelson Mandela Road.

It turns out that a little local knowledge is required! The buildings turn out to be a special storage depot for the National Maritime Museum (NMM) at Greenwich but during World War Two, it was an RAF equipment store. The Kidbrooke depot was due to be disposed of by the NMM during 2006.

Royal Navy shore establishments around Portsdown

Two of the UK's most secretive Government research laboratories are to be found at Fort Halstead in Kent and at Porton Down in Wiltshire.

These two bases are part of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) network. Certain other research facilities, which have been transferred to the commercial sector, have been collected together under the umbrella organisation QinetiQ - pronounced "kinetic". As mentioned earlier, DSTL and QinetiQ were formed in July 2001 out of the old Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA), which controlled all of the UK's MoD test ranges and research establishments.

In November 2003, DSTL announced a rationalisation programme whereby its staff would be focussed down to three core "centres of excellence". Namely, Porton Down (the DSTL HQ), Fort Halstead and the comparatively little-known Portsdown West. Meanwhile, QinetiQ would carry on the private sector work at the other former DSTL locations. The slimming down programme is due to be eventually completed by 2008.

The Portsdown West location is in a fascinating area on the chalk hills dotted with Victorian defence forts, overlooking the Naval Base at Portsmouth. One of those fortifications, Fort Southwick, was the former Admiralty Research Establishment.

A tunnel network 100 feet underneath it was used as the D-Day communications nerve centre in WWII. More recently it was a Royal Navy communications base run by the DCSA. Now it is under private ownership after being sold off by the MoD.

Another old Royal Navy establishment, HMS Dryad, can be seen in the village of Southwick further north. This is now the new home of the Defence Police College, a training base for the "Redcaps" - the Royal Military Police (RMP). They moved here in September 2005 from Roussillon Barracks in Chichester, West Sussex - their HQ since 1964.

Further east along the Portsmouth Downs, you can find the old Portsdown Main site, another former Royal Navy communications base, once packed with SIGINT buildings but now abandoned!

At the eastern-most end of the old Portsdown Main site, QinetiQ has another facility on Portsdown Technology Park (below). Here, in the LBTS (Land-Based Test Site), QinetiQ provides key testing, evaluation and training for Royal Navy equipment and staff working on Type 23 Frigate and Type 42 Destroyer projects, before going to sea on expensive trials.

Also accessible through the QinetiQ site is the Royal Navy's Maritime Warfare Centre (MWC). According to the Royal Navy's official website, it "provides a 'one-stop' shop for the evolution and dissemination of Maritime Doctrine and Concepts in a Joint Environment through Education, Tactical Development, Operational Analysis, Concept and Doctrine Development and Wargaming". Well, that's cleared that up then!

If you pan west on the high resolution Google Maps image (further below) of Portsdown Technology Park, you come across a curious and intriguing very secure compound on Portsdown Hill Road immediately adjacent to Fort Southwick. It is within Google Earth's high quality aerial photography coverage (also further below).

The compound turns out to be the pumping valve station for the former Royal Navy Underground Fuel Reserve dating from World War Two, which has now been drained and decommissioned. The compound is still maintained for regular safety checks, hence the substantial security fencing.

The Google Maps and Google Earth imagery reveals two large access portals to the south (alongside the M27 motorway) and another smaller one to the north. These portals allowed personnel to reach the huge underground fuel reservoir chambers through long tunnels carved out of the Portsdown chalk hillside.

The tunnels also carried the underground fuel pipelines up from the Admiralty Oil Fuel Depot over at Forton, Gosport, taking a circuitous route via the neighbouring Royal Naval Armaments Depots and DARA Fleetlands (discussed fully in Secret Bases Part 1).

For the full detailed analysis of all the fascinating locations in the Portsdown area, visit:-

• www.portsdown-tunnels.org.uk

Special Communications Units (SCU) – Leydene and Beaumanor

Picture this. The quintessential English countryside. The country estate with a stately home set in acres of parkland. The surrounding affluent stockbroker belt. The gentle walking route, called the South Downs Way, which runs through the whole area. An idyll. Surely no signs of a Secret Base here!

Wrong! Take a fresh look with Windows Live Local's Bird's Eye. Out from the lush verdant pastures emerges a once top secret Royal Navy shore establishment involved in covert signals interception. Stark 1940s buildings, laid out in a curious crescent shape, incongruently nestle next to ancient architectural splendour.

It ran from 1941 and throughout the Cold War until its final decommission in 2001. It was mentioned on the most recent "Sensitive Sites Register", finally scrapped only in 2006 due to the defeat of Government secrecy by Internet-based technology.

So where is it? Where did its activities get transferred to? Who are those strange new incumbents at the abandoned Royal Navy inland base?

Travel further north from the Portsdown area and consider the village of East Meon near Petersfield. Have a look at Leydene Park just a few miles to the south and you'll see a country house and its grounds, with the South Downs Way passing through the middle.

Take a look at the Bird's Eye aerial photo from Windows Live Local below and you'll see the former HMS Mercury, also known as the Special Communications Unit – SCU Leydene.

The distinctive buildings laid out in a crescent, now empty, can still be seen but other parts of the establishment have now been taken over by the Earthworks Trust, a charity promoting "green" living with its new Sustainability Centre!

Upon closure in 2001, the activities at SCU Leydene were transferred to the Portsdown area at HMS Collingwood in Fareham – the largest naval training base in Europe.