This former priory is the site of the Defence Intelligence and Security Centre (Disc), where British armed services and intelligence personnel are trained in how to react if captured by enemy forces. It is also believed that this is where the Belfast builder Freddie Scappaticci was debriefed by the British Army and MI5 after he was identified as the top IRA mole, Stakeknife, in May 2003. Both organisations have officially denied bringing him to Chicksands, and Scappaticci, whose current whereabouts are unknown, has denied he is Stakeknife, who was paid £80,000 a year by the British government for passing information about the IRA to the army for more than 20 years.

Chicksands is listed in the Domesday Book, but its history of covert activity dates back to the second world war, when the Ministry of Defence used it as a centre for decoding German radio signals. In 1950 the US Air Force (Usaf) set up a base here, which in 1964 evolved into a sophisticated radio interception centre that monitored Warsaw Pact communication channels during the cold war. Around this time, Usaf erected a 35-acre ring of powerful AN/FLR-9 aerials around the site. In 1995 Usaf turned the base back to the MoD. Although the aerials were deactivated in 1996, the site is still clearly visible in aerial shots, as can be seen at www.secret-bases.co.uk

LOST IN TRANSLATION

"The slowing in the universities' rate of expansion experienced in the 1970s was replaced in the early 1980s by an expenditure-led policy of contraction."

Translation: "We slashed spending on higher education in the early 1980s."

A government report on university funding, presented in February 1987 to the Thatcher government's Review of the University Grants Commission.

LISTOMANIA

Five 'extinct' animals that are no longer extinct

CAHOW: This Bermudan species of bird 'died out' in 1615 after thousands of them flew inadvertently into British colonists' cooking fires. In 1951, Bermuda's conservation officer, David Wingate, spotted 18 of them and encouraged them to breed.

DIBBLER: This marsupial mouse was listed as extinct in 1884. In 1967, an Australian naturalist trapping honey possums accidentally caught a pair of dibblers. The female produced a litter of eight and they were then bred in captivity.

DWARF LEMUR: The 'last known' dwarf lemur was reported in 1875. But in 1966 the tree-dwelling marsupial was seen again, near the city of Mananara, Madagascar.

MOUNTAIN PYGMY POSSUM: Another marsupial, this was considered extinct for 20,000 years until Dr Kenneth Shortman caught one in his kitchen in southeast Australia in 1966. Three more were found in 1970.

WHITE-WINGED GUAN: A South American bird, thought to be extinct for a century until 1977, when an American ornithologist and his Peruvian aide sighted four of the pheasant-sized creatures in northwest Peru.