Devizes wireless station, WWI's GCHQ

[Moonraker]

I've just sent you a private message giving my email address.  IIRC this facility is not available to newcomers to the GWF until they've made a handful of post (two? or more?)

Welcome to the Forum, by the way!

[Morganshill]

Many thanks, I have responded to your email with some details. I have also recently been reading your book regarding other WWI sites!

[Morganshill]

A useful look around the site last Friday. The extant building is mapped on the 1920s OS mapping and it appears visible on the photograph in the Post Office Radio Station, Devizes article Experimental Wireless Vol I No.5 February 1924 p247 which can be found online. This article also has photographs of the generator plant which almost certainly is the origin of a number of the steel studs set in concrete to the east of this building. The article also contains useful information on the aerial system, earth and a basic plan of the site layout. How much of this is inherited from the WWI period or immediately prewar is to be determined.

[Morganshill]

Some useful photographs on the Portishead Radio website, Devizes was basically the origin of Portishead Radio what was the world's largest maritime comms site until 2000 when it was closed. From 1920 Devizes handled both transmission and receiving for ship-to-shore but after a few years there was too much traffic to handle and the receiving end went to Highbridge (1925) followed by transmission from Portishead (1926) and the closure of Devizes in 1929. The images available on https://portisheadradio.co.uk/gallery-devizes  show good views of the masts and buildings at that time and these may well relate to the WWI period.

After our visit a couple of months ago the remaining building has been boarded up due to its very dangerous state, I hope it doesn't get demolished and that a use can be found for it.

 

[Moonraker]

Excellent article, published in October 2023

[Morganshill]

Thanks, it's a work in progress, I'm adding new information to the article occasionally, or at least bringing together the various parts that other people have discovered. The post WWI period is clearly at lot more fruitful and it came as quite a surprise when I found out that the site was the origin of Portishead Radio as I was very familiar with this from my time using morse. Solid information from WWI period hard to come by though, but clearly you have provided plenty already. I think next on the list will be to get a copy of the 1915 plan from Kew. Larry Bennett who has written the book on Portishead Radio also manages the website and there are some great photos from the 1920s, most of his material has been archived with BT and for local researchers some of this is held at Devizes Museum.

[Moonraker]

When you do see the plan, you may be puzzled by the annotation of  "Langley" on one edge.  I've just provided an explanation here.

[Morganshill]

Ah yes I had a look around Langley a few months ago just to get a feel for where the Leafield transmitter site had been located. I often travel the A361 to get to Shipston in south Warwickshire and near to Langley you can see the chalk downs on the horizon so the receiving site on Morgan's Hill (only a couple of miles from my home) would have been visible from Leafield masts. It gives me a good impression of why Langley might have been chosen, other than it being Crown Land. The later history of Leafield/Langley is also very interesting, apparently the site caused major problems for people in Oxfordshire who wanted to receive the BBC radio broadcasts in the early days. I'm somewhat concerned about the surviving structure at Morganshill now that the roof has completely collapsed and new boards have been put across windows and doors, it will be a shame if it is demolished.

[Moonraker]

Curious that there seem to be a few images etc of Leafield on-line, including a video it being opened in 1921, but, apart from the "private" photos that you  mention and include in your article, I've never seen any of the Devizes station. Sure, photography of it would have been prohibited during the war, but I would have thought that a local postcard publisher might have taken photos prewar of it during construction.  In 1908 J J Hunt of Calne went out to take photos of the Yeomanry camp(s) at Shepherds Shore and Baltic Farm close to the A361, but by 1914 he'd moved to Marlborough. I would have thought that after the war photography by the public would have been allowed once it was being used by the Post Office.

[Morganshill]

Maybe there are some around. I think part of the problem may have been that the current road running from the A361 to the A4 that passes closest to the site didn't really exist at the time of construction, I think I read somewhere that it was constructed part way to get materials into the site but of course there was a rifle range very close by and as Crown Land in an area of active military use it might have been very difficult to get close. Post war there is at least one article published in 1924 about the GPO facility, I think the photos used there may have been when the site opened for maritime traffic in 1920 though.

[Morganshill]

I've seen the Leafield video a few times, you get the impression that it's just been built but it had been pretty active through the war with presumably the masts erected just pre-war, these are identical to the Devizes ones. I read that at Leafield they were encased in concrete to extend their life, it would have been interesting to see that being carried out. Similar masts were erected at the Caernarfon Wireless Station in 1913 https://historypoints.org/index.php?page=marconi-transmitting-station-site-near-caernarfon

[Moonraker]

20 hours ago, Morganshill said:

... I think part of the problem may have been that the current road running from the A361 to the A4 that passes closest to the site didn't really exist at the time of construction, I think I read somewhere that it was constructed part way to get materials into the site...

 

See this AIF war diary  p32. Progress reports are appended to the Pioneer Battalion's diary for June 1918. The diary for August 1918 notes that the detached party at Devizes reported back to Sutton Veny early that month.

[Morganshill]

Interesting, is this an upgrade to the earlier site?

[Moonraker]

Part of a programme of "continuing improvements", I suspect. You may recall from the memoirs of one of its commanding officers that at the time of the Armistice, the establishment was being extended, with semi-permanent buildings being erected to the extent that its size was being doubled. When Gill suggested this might not be necessary, he was reproofed: "It is not for junior officers, knowing nothing of the facts in the knowledge of higher officers, to put forward suggestions of policy". So construction went on for more than 12 months and on the day it was completed, demolition commenced. (But presumably only on a limited scale:.
An advertisement in the Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser of April 11, 1923 offered for sale "one non-sectional hut" from the station, measuring 60ft 9in x 20ft 9in and 11ft 8in high, and no doubt there were other disposals.

Edited 5 March by Moonraker

[Moonraker]

21 hours ago, Morganshill said:

...  of course there was a rifle range very close by ...

Interesting/curious that the rifle range crossed the road between the A361 and A4. 1899 map. (Note flagstaff, presumably for a "warning" flag.) I would have thought that it would have been possible to have found a more convenient 1,000-yard stretch nearby, but the range was presented to the Wiltshire Yeomanry Cavalry by landowner G T S Estcourt in 1884..  Perhaps this was the range used in November 1914 when the Sergeants' Mess of the First Canadian's Contingent's  headquarters staff at West Down Camp participated in a 16-a-side shooting match against Devizes Working Men's Club. Embarrassingly no doubt, the working men won by 432 points to 410, three of them recording higher scores than the Canadians' best performer, Sergeant Graham.

(A couple of years ago I was walking on a right-of-way in the North Hampshire countryside when I came across a notice telling me to ring a hand-bell so that a clay-pigeon shoot could pause to allow me safe passage. Bell rung, I did scurry on very quickly.)

[Morganshill]

I was hoping that a project might get off the ground, with the help of Historic England, to do some recording at the site which might help clarify what we can see in the 1920s photos and how that compares to what is on the ground.  I have my doubts that this will go ahead so I may try and take it on if I can get permission. It may reveal where huts etc. had been removed.

With regard the rifle range, I was told by a local farming family that the road was not open to use by the public during WWII and at times in the post war period (1950s I think). There may have been a few around, I came across one not far away from the Morgan's Hill range just below the chalk at Quemerford, presumably having a hill behind the targets was a safety requirement.

Your story regarding the clay-pigeon shoot reminded me of last year when I was surveying the field systems on Buredrop Down near Chiseldon where there is a big shooting school, my survey area was the backdrop, safety nightmare!

[Morganshill]

Came across a short article in Modern Wireless March 1923, available at Modern-Wireless-1923-03-S-OCR.pdf (worldradiohistory.com)

Page 85 has an article on IMPERIAL WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS By Lieut.-Colonel C. G. CHETWODE CRAWLEY, R.M.A., M.I.E.E and shows a photograph of the masts at Abu Zabal near Cairo which I think was the transmitter side of the first link in the Imperial Wireless Chain which would have been received at Devizes if WWI hadn't scuppered the original plan. I think the masts are probably identical to those at Devizes and Leafield as one would expect. The article goes on to say "The masts at Leafield were to support the aerial of a receiving station during the war, and the Abu Zabal station was fitted up temporarily and used by the Admiralty for strategic communications." I only point out this article as a useful overview of what was happening pre, during and immediately post war and some of the politics behind the decision making.

Plus the magazine has a wonderful front cover if you download it all!

At the time it was written though, Marconi's Wireless Beam Stations working with short waves were soon to be a major change in technology that was about to influence radio communication systems for the next few decades, there are some other references to the later use of the Devizes station for experimental work with short wave comms presumably for the GPO. Probably once the Portishead Radio transmitter was in service, so perhaps 1926 to 1929.

Lieut.-Colonel C. G. CHETWODE CRAWLEY, R.M.A., M.I.E.E seems to have moved from military service to the GPO pre-war and then to supervising operations at naval stations abroad during the war, post-war he returns to the GPO but becomes a member of the Wireless Telegraphy Commission in 1921, set up by the government to provide technical recommendations to the resumption of the Imperial Wireless Chain. 

[Moonraker]

Last night I glanced at the British Newspaper Archive and looked for articles relating to the station. There were a number of references to its receiving messages in its postwar civilian role, and several to incidents involving soldiers based there during war, including one in which four REs, including a Boer War veteran, assaulted a cyclist.

(On registering, one's allowed to view three full articles before being invited to pay a subscription. I'm accumulating a list of topics for a research-binge next winter, or at Easter if it's going to be wet.)

[KizmeRD]

Apologies for joining this particular thread very late in the day, however I found a couple of articles that are pretty good at explaining what went on at Bishop’s Cannings (Devizes) receiving station during the Great War…

https://www.gchq.gov.uk/information/defending-our-skies

https://www.academia.edu/5172594/Mr_Hopgoods_shed_An_archaeology_of_Bishops_Cannings_Wireless_Station

MB

 

 

 

[KizmeRD]

I was interested to see in an earlier post from @Moonraker that Capt. Adrian Simpson RE was OiC Devizes Wireless Station in 1915.

Prior to the war he’d been Marconi’s man in Russia, and in 1916 he was promoted to Major and became OiC of MI.1(e).

MI.1(e) being responsible for wireless interception, direction finding and signal analysis.

MB

[Moonraker]

"MI5’s Wireless Radio Advisor – Lt. Col. Adrian Francis Hugh Sibbald Simpson" (but no mention of Devizes)

[KizmeRD]

Thanks, that’s a highly detailed description of his career. When you add in your snippet about Devizes, we can piece together where he was in between returning from Russia and heading off to work in the War Office.

MB

On 19/11/2015 at 19:18, Moonraker said: