Woodhead Hall is a country house at Cheadle in Staffordshire. It is a Grade II listed building.[1]
History edit
Woodhead Hall was originally commissioned by a Mr Leigh and completed in 1720.[2] It was acquired by William Allen, a merchant, in the 1840s and completely rebuilt by William Shepherd Allen to the designs of William Sugden in 1873.[2] It remained in the Allen family, passing to William Allen in 1915, until it became a preparatory school in 1925.[2] At the start of the Second World War it became RAF Cheadle[3] and, as a Y-station, started monitoring important enemy signals information.[4] The main task was to intercept messages from German bombers and ground stations.[5]
The hall continued as a monitoring station during the Cold War, with operations transferring to become part of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in January 1964 when all ministries' civilian interception sites came under its control.[6] GCHQ Cheadle continued to monitor Soviet communications.[7] The station closed in 1995 and the property was sold into private ownership in 1997.[5][2]
References edit
- ^ Historic England, "Woodhead Hall (1253648)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 4 December 2017
- ^ a b c d "Woodhead Hall, Cheadle, Staffordshire" (PDF). Retrieved 26 July 2014.
- ^ "Ministry of Defence hid microwave phone-tap tower inside nuclear plant". Retrieved 26 July 2014.
- ^ "Y Station Cheadle". The Parish Of Caverswall. Retrieved 26 July 2014.
- ^ a b "Codebreaker Ernest, 91 yesterday, is finally honoured with medal". The Sentinel. 16 October 2009. Retrieved 26 July 2014.
- ^ "The story of Signals Intelligence 1914-2014". GCHQ. Retrieved 1 September 2018.
- ^ "How Cheltenham entered America's backyard". New Scientist. 5 April 1984. Retrieved 12 December 2014.