Woodhead Hall

Woodhead Hall is a country house at Cheadle in Staffordshire. It is a Grade II listed building.[1]

History

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 examining Soviet communications under the aegis of Government Communications Headquarters[6] until it was closed in 1995;[5] the property was then sold into private ownership in 1997.[2]

References

  1. ↑ "Woodhead Hall, Cheadle". Retrieved 26 July 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Woodhead Hall, Cheadle, Staffordshire" (PDF). Retrieved 26 July 2014.
  3. ↑ "Ministry of Defence hid microwave phone-tap tower inside nuclear plant". Retrieved 26 July 2014.
  4. ↑ "Y Station Cheadle". The Parish Of Caverswall. Retrieved 26 July 2014.
  5. 1 2 "Codebreaker Ernest, 91 yesterday, is finally honoured with medal". The Sentinel. 16 October 2009. Retrieved 26 July 2014.
  6. ↑ "How Cheltenham entered America's backyard". New Scientist. 5 April 1984. Retrieved 12 December 2014.

Coordinates: 53°00′02″N 1°57′52″W / 53.0006°N 1.9644°W / 53.0006; -1.9644

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