Alan Turnbull's
Secret Bases
PART
2 OF 5
An entertaining guide to using
Internet-based research tools
OS maps, aerial photos, Google Earth
to reveal the UK's "hidden"
MoD facilities and military sites
Featuring covert spy bases,
underground bunkers and more
The website that causedbut with a Twist in the Tale
Page last updated:
4th March 2024
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"Secret Base" locations revealed – Part 2 of 5

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Pontrilas Army Training Area (PATA)

Permalink
SAS counter-terrorism trainer jet
SAS counter-terrorism train
SAS counter-terrorism trainer jet

SAS Hacker Squad exposed by MoD job advert blunder
MAB5 – Computer Network Operations (CNO) Exploit unit is in PATA (scroll down)

SAS uses scrapped Nigerian Boeing 747
as new Counter Terrorism Trainer (scroll down)

Sometimes, you can stumble upon the downright bizarre. Consider the Pontrilas Army Training Area (often known by its acronym PATA), which is fairly self-explanatory. Or is it?

The area, north of the village of Pontrilas in Herefordshire, close to the Welsh border, is a former munitions depot, revealed by the (dismantled) train line system, just west of the training area's main gate, near the village of Ewyas Harold.

The old disused munitions train line system once connected into the Golden Valley Branch – towards Hay-on-Wye via Abbeydore and Peterchurch – off the nearby main line at a branch junction in the village of Pontrilas itself, a little further south. The main A465 Abergavenny to Hereford road through Pontrilas features a demolished bridge that took the Golden Valley Branch line over.

But wait, hold on. What on earth is THIS? What is a jet aircraft doing hidden in a clearing in Gilbert's Hill Wood? Perhaps the clue is the county location: Herefordshire. Yes, the PATA is now used exclusively by the UK's Special Forces, the SAS. The plane is rumoured to be used for counter-terrorism (CT) training. Rather than a real jet, it seems likely that the aircraft is in fact merely a "mock-up", similar to those used on film productions. Check for yourself by viewing the famous Pontrilas SAS Jet in extreme close-up on Bing.

In June 2007, in a major update to Google Earth's imagery, it finally became available at hi-res too. But in early 2013, I spotted some new Bing aerial imagery taken sometime during 2012. It revealed a huge new building next to the jet, in a previously empty field. Read on.

But in March 2010, Google Street View was updated with a massive new dataset of UK imagery and I found a gap in the foliage. Another closer inspection of the far west side of Gilbert's Hill Wood at PATA reveals some very real – not mock-up – passenger train carriages too. View a gallery of close-up ground photos of those trains once used for SAS CT training but now scrapped.

During 2011, the Ministry of Defence awarded a contract to what was then Knights Rail Services Limited (now Arlington Rail Services of Eastleigh Works near Southampton) to supply decontaminated London underground tube train carriages for use at PATA for training in counter-terrorism scenarios. The contract document CTLBC/1754 described the purchase of four carriages at £8000 each, a supply of replacement window glass and named two senior SAS personnel in charge of the procurement programme.

Both named officers were at the rank of major in the SAS: one was based at Regent's Park Barracks in Albany Street, Central London and the other was the PATA Estate Manager at Pontrilas. The Regent's Park Barracks SAS major's email address and telephone number were published too.

The PATA Major named on the contract later retired after 34 years in the SAS – having been awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal and an MBE – and founded the Hire a Hero charity.

SAS Pontrilas munitions line crossing
Pontrilas old munitions depot train line (left) is now the cottage garden at Elm Bridge Crossing, Ewyas Harold
Google Street View
SAS Pontrilas PATA heatmap on Strava
SAS Pontrilas Counter-Terrorism Army Training Area on Strava Heatmap showing SAS soldiers jogging within the high security camp (left) next to the public road (right)
Strava Heatmap
Pontrilas SAS counter-terrorism trainer jet and
Building 1011 Indoor Weapons Range (top)
Click for more Secret Bases on
Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Street View
A similar counter-terrorist (CT) trainer aircraft mock-up can be spotted at high resolution on Google Earth at RAAF Pearce at Bullsbrook, north east of Perth, Western Australia. It is thought to be also used by visiting UK and US special forces.

In February 2010, newer imagery captured in May 2009 was uploaded to Google Earth and revealed a new compound next to the jet mock-up. But what is it for? Then during 2012, another major construction project was commenced in a previously empty field next to the mock jet but to the north. However, you won't find any planning application documents at Herefordshire Council.

The UK Treasury gives it the tiniest cryptic mention in an Excel spreadsheet of Government building projects. It gets a single line entry which reveals it is costing £8.44 million, it is for the MoD's DIO (Defence Infrastructure Organisation), its finance audit code is "Z9M0025Y09" and it is to be called "Building 1011" — but not its function. I suggest that by scutinising the building's dimensions you can assume that it is an indoor weapons firing range. An old news story from 1995 – when a previous plan for a sniper training range was attempted on the other side of the PATA near to the Cistercian Abbey of Abbeydore – seems to back this up.

Since Building 1011 was constructed, further developments at Pontrilas have been evident. More aircraft fuselages have joined the original mock-up jet and a new clearing in the forest has been created which contain buildings for hostage release operations and close quarters battle training.

In 2014, the struggling Nigerian air carrier Med-View scrapped its Boeing 747-300, registration TF-AME, serial number 23032, built in 1984, at Cotswold Airport (formerly RAF Kemble) near Cirencester, Gloucestershire. After spending a while in Air Salvage International's Kemble scrapyard compound in the far north east corner of the airfield, in January 2015 it was transported up to SAS Pontrilas to act as another counter-terrorism trainer.

PATA - Pontrilas Army Training Area - New training compounds
New aerial photography in 2017 reveals additional fuselages next to the mock-up jet and new compounds for hostage release operations and close quarters battle (CQB) training
Bing aerial photo
PATA - Pontrilas Army Training Area - Med View Boeing 747-300 TF-AME
One of the additional Pontrilas airframes (top) still has its carrier name visible from when it was scrapped at Cotswold Airport near Cirencester (formerly RAF Kemble) in 2014. Nigeria's Med-View Boeing 747-300 registration TF-AME, serial number 23032, was built in 1984 and leased from Air Atlanta Icelandic. It is now an SAS counter terrorism trainer
Google Earth
PATA - Pontrilas Army Training Area - Med View Boeing 747 TF-AMV
Another Nigerian Med-View 747 (TF-AMV) in the Kemble scrapyard in July 2018
Google Street View
PATA - Pontrilas Army Training Area - New training compounds
New PATA forest clearing with a compound for hostage release operations and close quarters battle (CQB) training
Bing aerial photo

MAB 5: Computer Network Operations (CNO) Exploit unit within PATA

SAS Hacker Squad exposed by MoD job advert blunder

In August 2021, an astonishing job advert appeared on the UK Civil Service recruitment portal. The fascinating document went into graphic detail about a unit based at Pontrilas and headed by a military commander but staffed by specialist electronics engineers and scientists employed as civil servants.

MAB5 was described in gushing terms and with incredible detail, even naming the military leader – a Lieutenant Colonel (Lt. Col.) in the Royal Corps of Signals, who was awarded the MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2013 when he was a Major. In 2012, he had already received the Royal Signals Institute's RSI Silver Medal for outstanding individual professional achievement at Signals Traffic Officer rank, Maj (Tfc).

The February 2013 edition of the Royal Signals Corps magazine The Wire wrote, "The unassuming Major became the deserved recipient of the RSI Silver Medal for his work in his previous appointment as the Operations Officer within the Special Forces environment. The ceremony and reception at the Institute for Directors in Pall Mall, London on the 15th November 2012 was a fitting occasion. He was successful in restricting photographs of the event, but in a rare glimpse of raw emotion, his unbridled joy and gratitude of being a winner was there for all to see as he gave the Master of Signals an affectionate hug".

His email address and phone number were also listed in the MAB5 job advert. Whilst the phone number was for the SAS Barracks at Stirling Lines, Credenhill in Hereford, the job advert stated the vacancy was based at "Hereford, HR2 0JA" which is the post code for PATA.

The job blurb went on to announce, "MAB 5 is a small military unit that specialises in the provision of novel and ground-breaking science and technology prototypes for operational requirements. As a military unit it is irregular and unrecognisable. Most of the workforce consist of civil servants who are Defence's most talented scientists and engineers. The CNO Exploit engineer works within a small highly specialised team of talented engineers specialising in communications, electronics, networks and systems".

The job vacancy described a "Skilled Electronics Engineer required for CNO Exploit solutions in support of a specialist military user organisation". GCHQ is named as a key partner. It is possible that MAB5 is linked to the ultra secretive Special Reconnaisance Regiment (SRR). The successful candidate was required to obtain the highest level Developed Vetting (DV) security clearance.

As for that curious MAB acronym, well it is simply a coy reference to "MoD A Block" which in turn is a codename for use by those "in the know" when wishing to refer to UK Special Forces (UKSF) operations. The actual physical MoD A Block is at the SAS Regents Park Barracks in Albany Street, Central London and is UKSF HQ.

According to a handy list of acronyms compiled by the Army Athletics Association, there are seven other UKSF units codenamed MAB 1, MAB 2, MAB 3, MAB 4, MAB 6, MAB 7 and MAB 8.

MAB3 is associated with the 23 SAS Reservists based in Birmingham – given that the MAB 3 contact telephone number is the 23 SAS applicant line 0121 386 8255. Likewise, MAB4 is the 21 SAS Reservists in South West England.

MAB1 is the reservist 63 Signals and SBS Signals Squadrons. MAB2 is the active 22 SAS at Credenhill, Hereford. MAB6 and MAB7 are associated with the Royal Marine Commandos, with MAB 6 being the Royal Marines Hamworthy Barracks – home to the SBS Special Boat Service – at Poole near Bournemouth; MAB 7 is the MoD St. Athan aerodrome and training centre in South Glamorgan providing the UKSF Support Group in the form of Paratroopers. Both MAB 6 and MAB 7 codenames are mentioned in the Royal Marines Careers Handbook. It is amusing to see how many of these Special Forces unit MAB codewords can be found on LinkedIn.

The technology news website The Register subsequently featured my findings. A few days later, the Russian TV news channel RT (formerly Russia Today) copied the Register article. A week later, the Mail on Sunday featured my story too.

MAB 5 commanding officer
MAB 5 SAS Hacker Squad leader (far right)
with his wife (second left) and village neighbours
at a Help for Heroes event at their local pub near Leominster
© Hereford Times
MAB 5 commanding officer's daughter
MAB5 SAS Hacker Squad leader's daughter on Twitter
but at least she's following OPSEC by avoiding the camera
MAB 5 commanding officer's daughter
MAB5 SAS Hacker Squad leader's daughter on mountain operations, still observing OPSEC
MAB 5 commanding officer's daughter
Oh dear, I spoke too soon! MAB 5 SAS Hacker Squad leader's daughter (right)
Colourful dresses, but what's the colour of the boathouse at Hereford?
MAB 5 commanding officer's daughter
SAS Talent Pool: protecting navel bases from hostile seamen
MAB5 Lt. Col.'s girl (right) frolicking with pal at the
American International School in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
just after leaving Tenbury Wells High School in 2012,
but photo was still on Twitter in 2021
when my SAS Hacker Squad story broke
MAB5 commanding officer's home
MAB 5 Lt. Col.'s girl leaves home for Riyadh in 2012,
then posts photo of the removals van from her bedroom window on Twitter,
allowing me to pinpoint the address by studying aerial photos
MAB 5 commanding officer's home
MAB5 Lt. Col.'s girl reveals the family home location through Twitter gaffe
MAB5 commanding officer's home
MAB 5 Lt. Col.'s girl reveals the family home location through Twitter gaffe
MAB5 SAS Hacker Squad story in Mail on Sunday
MAB5 SAS Hacker Squad story in the Mail on Sunday, 22nd August 2021

NTRG Kidlington and IRC Campsfield House: another mock-up jet

Having seen the Pontrilas jet, Secret Base hunters might get excited when they see a plane fuselage in Kidlington, Oxfordshire. The location is not Oxford Airport, but right next door at the UK Prison Service's "SAS" – the National Tactical Response Group.

NTRG Kidlington is a specialist training centre adjacent to IRC Campsfield House – an Immigration Removal Centre. The plane fuselage within NTRG Kidlington is used to train immigration removal officers in procedures when deporting individuals from the UK's numerous IRCs.

NTRG Kidlington and IRC Campsfield House
The Prison Service's SAS: National Tactical Response Group, NTRG Kidlington
IRC Campsfield House (background), NTRG Kidlington (foreground), plane fuselage (right)
Google Maps 3D
NTRG Kidlington and IRC Campsfield House
IRC Campsfield House, NTRG Kidlington and mock-up plane fuselage
Google Earth
Pontrilas PATA
Comparing aerial views of the SAS Counter-Terrorism (CT) trainer unit at Pontrilas, 2001 (left) and 2009 (right) revealing a new secure compound
PATA - Pontrilas Army Training Area - Building 1011 Indoor Weapons Range
New Bing aerial photography in 2013 reveals a major construction project at Pontrilas next to the mock jet. The £8.44 million Building 1011 – an Indoor Weapons Range
Bing aerial photo
PATA - Pontrilas Army Training Area
I Spy the SAS Pontrilas mock-up jet on Google Street View
Google Street View
PATA - Pontrilas Army Training Area
Peekaboo! Gap in the hedgerow provides glimpse of communications antenna at SAS PATA
Google Street View
Special Forces counter-terrorism trainer unit at RAAF Pearce, Buulsbrook, Perth, Western Australia
Aerial view of the Special Forces Counter-Terrorism (CT) trainer unit at RAAF Pearce, Bullsbrook, Perth, Western Australia
Available at hi-res on Google Earth
RAAF Pearce
Special Forces
Counter-Terrorism Unit
Perth, Western Australia
[ 31 40 27S, 116 00 39E ]

Fire Training mock-ups

Hong Kong Airport
[ 22 17 54N, 113 54 54E ]

Hickam AFB Hawaii
[ 21 19 15N, 157 56 33W ]
If some journalists found my publication of the photo of the Pontrilas plane scandalous, what on earth would they have to say about the two others below? Surely not more SAS counter-terrorism trainer units?

The first location is Bagmoor Common, a military training area close to Elstead near Godalming, Surrey. It is marked on 1:25000 OS maps as a Danger Area. But the maps also indicate that the public are allowed in under strict "managed access" terms.

Oh I'm such a tease. Yes, it's a military training area sure enough. It's associated with the massive army training area based at Longmoor Camp near Bordon, just over the border in Hampshire. The public are allowed special "managed access", as the area is one of "outstanding natural beauty". The plane? Oh, it was just caught by Getmapping's photographers as it took off from Gatwick Airport, further east. Note how the scale of the plane doesn't match the ground detail. A salutary lesson in how not to let yourself get too carried away with "Secret Bases".

The second location is another mock-up aircraft, similar to the RAAF Pearce airframe above. It can be spotted at the eastern perimeter of London's Heathrow Airport, in a secure enclave. It is in amongst the maintenance hangars at the end of Exeter Way, off Eastchurch Road Roundabout in Hatton Cross. In its green livery it looks a bit like Thunderbird 2.

Thunderbird 2
Gerry Anderson's
Thunderbird 2
© Carlton Media
MAGIC map of Heathrow Fire Trainer
The Heathrow Fire Trainer mock-up jet has been on Google Earth for ages, but in July 2007 it was featured for the first time in a special Bird's Eye aerial photo from Windows Live Local.

Using the 1:25000 map, you can even see the airframe's outline marked – check for yourself. But rather than another counter-terrorism unit, it's simply used for fire training.

Another UK airfield fire trainer mock-up can be found on the north side of RAF St. Athan, mentioned earlier. Many airbases around the world have similar examples. Two can be seen at exotic locations at Hong Kong Airport and Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.

In November 2006, specialist fire trainer manufacturer Simulation TERS (now owned by Alpine Metal Tech) – based at special hangars on the Briggs Business Centre in the middle of Burton-upon-Trent in Derbyshire – tested their latest £2.6 million mock-up rig at Manchester Airport, in front of journalists (pictured further below, BBC North West). During 2007, Simulation TERS moved their operations to the Bretby Business Park over on the east side of Burton-upon-Trent.
Plane near Godalming, Surrey, on take-off from Gatwick Airport
Another counter-terrorism trainer unit near Godalming, Surrey?
No, just a plane taking off from Gatwick Airport – phew
Click on the image to make the plane disappear on newer aerial photo data!
Fire Training mock-up at Heathrow Airport
SAS? Thunderbird 2? No. Fire Training mock-up at Heathrow Airport, London
Bing Bird's Eye
Fire Trainer at Manchester Airport
Fire Training Simulator under test at Manchester Airport in November 2006
www.alpinemetaltech.com
Photo: BBC North West
Click to watch on YouTube
Fire Training mock-up at Manchester Airport
Bird's Eye view of Manchester Airport Fire Trainer
Bing Bird's Eye
A site which shows a large number of aerial symbols like the one at Chelveston in Northamptonshire (below), might mean just a group of TV and/or radio masts. But in this instance, it's actually RAF Chelveston, former home to a USAF bomber squadron, but more recently a signals facility for the Defence Communications Services Agency (DCSA).

Take another look at the site by using Multimap's aerial photo which again shows fascinating detail, but try Google Earth for truly breathtaking high resolution photography of the huge "mast farm".

In 2004, the high frequency (HF) radio masts were dismantled and the 758 acre site was disposed of by the DCSA. In late 2005, it was sold by Defence Estates to a businessman who was in the process of developing it into Chelveston Renewable Energy Park.

In early 2006, the Chelveston aerial mast cluster was removed from OS 1:25000 maps, but remained at 1:50000 scale for a while until eventual deletion in July 2006. Around the same time, the local council's planning committee published details of a proposed anemometer mast, 70 metres (230 ft) high, to measure wind speed and other scientific data.

On older maps, another cluster of aerial symbols could be found in a field not far from Whipsnade Wild Animal Park near Dunstable in Bedfordshire, just over the border in Buckinghamshire next to the crossroads between Edlesborough and Dagnall on Gallows Hill. It was actually another DCSA site designated RAF Edlesborough which has also closed down.

The Chelveston aerial cluster is tantalisingly close to RAF Molesworth, which is comically labelled as a disused airfield on OS maps. Molesworth once stored Cruise missiles and is now one of the UK's most important and sensitive military intelligence bases. Indeed, the former Cruise missile bunkers are marked on the 1:25000 map and are clearly visible on Multimap's aerial photo. Note that the area is ringed by triple high security fencing.

To the east of RAF Molesworth's camp, in the "disused airfield" area, two main entrances to networks of underground bunkers can be spotted north and south, on Multimap's aerial photos. RAF Molesworth and the remains of RAF Chelveston can both be seen even better in exclusive Pilot's Eye Views taken by my expert contributor in August 2007.

Other similar military intelligence bases can be found at Chicksands (near Shefford) and Henlow, both in Bedfordshire and at Ashby-de-la-Launde near Digby in Lincolnshire.

RAF Chelveston
RAF Chelveston's old antenna sites (left, in 2010) and the solar panel and wind turbine farm (right, in 2016)
RAF Chelveston
Pilot's Eye view: Looking south over RAF Chelveston
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
RAF Molesworth
Pilot's Eye view: Looking south over RAF Molesworth
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
RAF Molesworth former Cruise Missile bunkers
Pilot's Eye view: Looking north east over RAF Molesworth's former Cruise Missile bunkers
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases

GCHQ Lincolnshire, Project Jessica and Weapons Systems Analysts

Permalink The village of Ashby-de-la-Launde in Lincolnshire sounds like the location for one of those Sunday night Midsomer Murder dramas on TV. It is actually the location for RAF Digby, once known as RAF Skopwick after another village nearby. It used to be labelled as yet another of those "disused airfields". But wait, try looking with the 1:25000 map and that empty field is suddenly a mass of aerial symbols. RAF Digby is yet another very important signals analysis centre and, among many things, is even rumoured to be involved in covert interception of mobile telephone signals. You can see RAF Digby's special secure enclosure in the south west corner of the old airfield on the close-up aerial photo.

In January 2011, curious job adverts appeared for "Weapons Systems Analysts" working for GCHQ "in Lincolnshire". The adverts asked, "Would you like to play a role in preventing our aircraft being shot down or our ships being sunk, or help to keep Government departments informed about global weapons development? GCHQ is looking for motivated people to work in a team of specialists, based in Lincolnshire, whose role is to provide this kind of information to decision makers in Whitehall and elsewhere." The job adverts mentioned additional payments for shift work and an intriguing "Voice Working Allowance".

Lincolnshire is a long way from the Doughnut in Cheltenham and that must have confused many people. But RAF Digby is indeed where those successful new recruits will be based ... at the end of Cuckoo Lane.

During 2011, the Ministry of Defence submitted a major planning application to North Kesteven Council, on behalf of prime contractors Babcock DynCorp, for Project Jessica detailing the significant expansion of NSA Digby's main mission building known merely as Building 177A.

The application coyly described the need for "additional admin office space" but two extra cooling plant enclosures on the outside were also specified – but no windows. Construction work on Building 177A's extension was almost complete by the time fresh Google Earth imagery was taken in May 2013 and the latest April 2018 shots reveal it in best resolution.

GCHQ Lincolnshire - RAF Digby
In early 2011, job adverts appeared for "Weapons Systems Analysts" at "GCHQ Lincolnshire": RAF Digby
Aerial photo
NSA Digby
Construction work at GCHQ Lincoln / NSA Digby in Summer 2013
Google Earth
NSA Digby
Project Jessica at Building 177A by Babcock DynCorp on 2018 imagery
GCHQ Lincoln's NSA mission building at RAF Digby has expanded significantly
Google Maps
NSA Digby
Babcock DynCorp's Project Jessica at Building 177A
GCHQ Lincoln's NSA Digby mission building expansion
NSA Digby
NSA Digby in an old aerial photo from the Edward Snowden archive
© NSA / The Intercept
NSA Digby Strava Heatmap
NSA Digby on the Strava Heatmap showing joggers being tracked
Strava Heatmap

DISC Chicksands, RAF Edzell and the FLR-9 CDAA

Permalink
Sunday Times
DISC Chicksands is the tri-service Defence Intelligence & Security Centre. Since 2015 it has been named JITG – the Joint Intellgence Training Group. It is the place where, in May 2003, journalists suggested that an alleged British Government spy within the IRA, known as "Stakeknife", was to be brought for "debriefing" by MI5 and the Army. DISC Chicksands is also home to the Psychological Operations Group – 15 (UK) PSYOPS. This specialist unit supports all three military disciplines in war zones throughout the world, especially in the areas of counter-propaganda radio broadcasts and leaflet drops. To repeat a question that triggered all that Media Hysteria in June 2004: Wait, hold on. What on earth is THIS?

In a suspicious perfectly round clearing in Chicksands Wood labelled "The Hill", there seems to be a prehistoric stone circle rivalling Stonehenge. Are the folks at English Heritage aware of this hidden gem? No. It turns out to be an FLR-9 high frequency signals interception antenna array which, at the height of the Cold War, was used to intercept Soviet and Warsaw Pact communications as well as non-US Diplomatic messages. During WWII, Chicksands' earlier antennae were used to capture the German Enigma transmissions, which were then passed to the GCHQ code breakers at Bletchley Park.

The "Elephant Cage", as it was nicknamed by the US personnel, was erected in 1964 and finally dismantled in 1996 when the US Air Force turned the Chicksands base over to the UK MoD Joint Services. It can be seen below at high resolution in July 1990, just six years before finally being taken out of service, my specialist aerial photography contributor with the handy pilot's licence.

The OS 1:25000 map of the antenna site labels the area just to the south east of it as a "Danger Area". The detail of this "Danger Area" as seen on the aerial photo below reveals a rifle range. Perhaps this is so that all serving military officers based at Chicksands can "keep their hand in" and ensure that their combatant training is up to date.

It was suspicious that the "Danger Area" at Chicksands was simply missing from the 1:10000 OS map, until the data was helpfully revised in early 2006 with the full details and labelled "Firing Range" – perhaps prompted by its mention here and appearance on Google Earth. The "Danger Area" was also a vehicle exclusion zone, when the antenna array was active, because it was where the crucial underground cables between the FLR-9 and the control room lay. All that remains now are the tell-tale plinths on the ground on which the antennae were mounted.

In 2006, in stark contrast to the ultra-secretive Cold War activities at Chicksands, Rowney Warren Wood – just to the north east of the former FLR-9 site – played host to the National Points Series Four Cross (NPS 4X) mountain bike racing competition. Also in Bedfordshire, RAF Henlow is another of those "disused airfields". Granted, the runways are grass covered, as shown on the aerial photo, but Henlow is home to another signals analysis centre, of the utmost importance.

Incidentally, up in Scotland, the site of another Circular Disposed Antenna Array (CDAA) from the Cold War years can be found at the old "disused airfield" at RAF Edzell, just off the main A90 Dundee to Aberdeen road north of Brechin. Take a closer look using the 1:25000 map and you can see the original site, in between the runways, which once housed the antenna array used by America's National Security Agency (NSA) and the US Navy. As revealed in new imagery from Getmapping further below, the site is now used by local company Carnegie Fuels for oil storage and manufacturing purposes.

Old FLR-9 Antenna Array site and Danger Area (south east) at Chicksands
The old FLR-9 Antenna Array site and "Danger Area" at Chicksands
RAF Edzell
Looking north west across the US Naval Security Group's CDAA. Early 1980s view of RAF Edzell near Brechin, Angus, Scotland
Aerial photography reproduced by kind permission of John Leinaweaver, Oregon, USA
RAF Edzell
Aerial view of RAF Edzell in current usage by Carnegie Fuels for storage
Aerial photo
Chicksands FLR-9 CDAA in July 1990
Pilot's Eye view: Looking west across the FLR-9 CDAA "Elephant Cage" at Chicksands in July 1990
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases

Giant Voice – US military base emergency alert system

The truth about the RAF Croughton "diplomat" and the death crash

N37NG Northrop Grumman Gulfstream G550
Northrop Grumman Gulfstream G550

★ Was Northrop Grumman's Gulfstream executive jet
used to extract CIA spy Anne Sacoolas and family?

★ Was a MAC Space-A flight out of Mildenhall on a
C5, C17 or C130 cargo plane used?

★ Jonathan Sacoolas and the military airborne
surveillance aerostat systems (balloons / blimps)

★ Jonathan Sacoolas and the NSA / CIA Special Collection Service

★ June 2020 Judicial Review – Top Secret US Embassy memos from the 1990s revealed

★ World Exclusive – a peek inside the Sacoolas mansion: Through the Keyhole

Permalink RAF Croughton near Brackley in Northamptonshire is an old USAF airbase, but no runways have been apparent for many years. The base appears on maps as a significant cluster of aerial symbols. That's because RAF Croughton is the focal point for the US military's communications within Europe. On the 1:25000 map, they use that favourite epithet, "Wireless Station". Note on the aerial photo, not one but two high security SIGINT enclaves in the middle of the field which once housed the USAF airbase runways. At the south end of the base, there's the cross formation transmitter enclave with an aerial mast in the middle, identical to the one which was once at MI6's agent communications station at Gawcott, Buckinghamshire, discussed earlier. Also note two baseball pitches, at the north west corner of the Croughton site, providing fun for the US base workers.

Croughton has a transmitter annexe at RAF Barford St. John near Banbury in Oxfordshire. This "disused airfield" is said to provide secure communications facilities for CIA agents and US Diplomatic personnel. The 1:25000 OS map reveals another good old "Wireless Station" label. In 2007, an upgrade was made to the Station Personnel Alerting Systems at Croughton and Barford St. John in the form of new tannoys nicknamed "Giant Voice". These high power speakers on top of tall poles are used to broadcast tones and messages to muster base personnel at times of national emergency such as natural disasters or terrorist attacks. The system was first introduced following the 9/11 attacks in America.

After an embarrassing complete system failure in July 2005 – at the time of the London tube and bus bombings – the Giant Voice system was overhauled at key US military bases throughout the UK. As revealed in amazingly detailed architect plans submitted to the local council in a planning permission application, the tannoy pole at Barford St. John is located immediately north of the microwave tower adjacent to Building 85, within the secure compound in the middle of the "airfield".

Jonathan Sacoolas
Jonathan Sacoolas
Jonathan Sacoolas
Jonathan Sacoolas
Jonathan Sacoolas
Jonathan Sacoolas
Jonathan Sacoolas
Jonathan Sacoolas

Wife of NSA / CIA technical operative kills motorcyclist
and flees under false Diplomatic Immunity

Anne Sacoolas, the "diplomat's wife", based at RAF Croughton, has been named by media worldwide. On 27th August 2019, she exited the spy centre's main gate driving on the wrong side of the road (by her own admission to Northamptonshire Police) and crashed head-on into a local motorcyclist named Harry Dunn – just 19 years old – causing fatal injuries. Police subsequently verified her culpability by examining CCTV recordings.

The media continued reporting the accused's husband's occupation as a "diplomat" but no such person could be traced through official lists. Jonathan Patrick Sacoolas (known to family and friends as Jon) from Reston, Virginia is thought instead to be a senior NSA / CIA Technical Operator or Intelligence Officer working on communications systems and this would explain him being spirited out of the country with his wife and children immediately after the fatal incident – and a month before it was eventually reported in the media.

The Sacoolas family had only been resident in the UK for a few weeks, following their posting to Croughton. It has been reported in some publications that a CIA executive jet from the NATO base in Ramstein, Germany was procured and flew the Sacoolas family back to the US.

Jonathan Sacoolas's amateur radio licence (station callsign AK4VY) is available for viewing on the FCC website (PDF version), where he gives his address as Postal Box number 103 at the UPS store on Plaza America Drive, Reston, Virginia. His previous licence from 2005 until 2012 (callsign KC7MIZ) is also available (PDF version), where his former real home addresses of Oldfield Drive, Reston and Stanmoor Terrace in Sterling can be found. His licences were obtained through the examinations service of the Laurel Amateur Radio Club based in Maryland.

Since when did you hear of a US diplomat being a ham radio enthusiast?

The Dunn family's adviser and spokesman Radd Seiger approached me in April 2020 for assistance and I was happy to act as a technical consultant on the activities of RAF Croughton.

CIA or NSA: the plot thickens

In October 2019, in an unprecedented outburst, the NSA officially denied that Jonathan Sacoolas was an employee of theirs. Until May 2020, only two images of him were publicly available – and they date all the way back to his high school yearbook. However, I changed all that. Read on.

Given that all intelligence agencies have a standing policy of not commenting on personnel matters, this is an extraordinary disavowment which can only point to both husband and wife being CIA operatives. Indeed, the Sacoolas family's addresses around Reston in Northern Virginia are close to the Langley HQ of the CIA.

Jonathan Sacoolas and TCOM airborne surveillance "blimps"

Another past address available in public records for Jonathan Patrick Sacoolas (but not his wife or children) is Davis Bay Road in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, NC 27909. That precise location is right next to TCOM's manufacturing and flight testing facility which incorporates a vast hangar. The Elizabeth City Regional Airport (also a US Coastguard Air Station) is nearby too. TCOM's promotional video is titled "Soldiers of the Skies".

For forty years they have been leaders in airborne persistent surveillance aerostat systems for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) solutions. "Balloons", "airships" or "blimps" to you and me. TCOM's facility in Elizabeth City resembles the UK's Cardington Hangars, home to the ill-fated R101 airship. More recently, Cardington has been used as a Warner Brothers film studio.

The US Department of Defence and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are key TCOM customers. TCOM was awarded a $979 million contract with the DoD in September 2019, just a few weeks after Jonathan Sacoolas and family were posted to RAF Croughton.

From the three-bedroom, two-bathroom rented bungalow on Davis Bay Road in Elizabeth City, Jonathan Sacoolas then went to one of his many locations in Virginia close to the CIA headquarters. He took up residence (with all his family) in a palatial four-bedroom three-bathroom mansion built in 1966 set in three acres of woodland and complete with a swimming pool in Westford Drive, Vienna, VA 22182.

The seven-bedroom, six-bathroom mansions down the hill beyond the gates on Wynhurst Lane make the UK's own Virginia Water at Wentworth, Surrey look like a rough council estate. Fit for an ambassador, never mind a diplomat – except he is neither. Fairfax County home sales records published in the Washington Post on 28th December 2015 reveal they bought it for $770,000 in August 2015.

The property was offered for rent in June 2019, when the Sacoolas family were relocated to RAF Croughton. The market value estimate in May 2020 was $864,500 and its rental estimate was $4000 a month. MI5 and MI6 officers must be crying (but not with laughter).

Unforgivably, for top CIA operators, he and Anne showed rather too much to the sales agent when they moved on again (see the pictures below).

I even spotted Thomas L. Friedman's guide to Middle East politics "From Beirut To Jerusalem" on the bookshelf tucked-in amongst those on travel, cookery, gardening, woodworking, mountaineering, calculus, physics, chemistry, corporate leadership techniques ... and microelectronics: "Practical Arduino", "Practical Antenna Handbook", "The Analysis and Design of Linear Circuits" and the industry 'bibles' "Building Scientific Apparatus" by John Moore and "Art of Electronics" by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill.

There was also "Killer Spy" by Peter Maas – the inside story of the FBI's pursuit and capture of America's deadliest spy Aldrich Ames. A special gift bottle of Ravenswood wine from California's Sonoma Valley takes centre stage on the book case next to a TV and a US flag.

Judicial Review – June 2020

At 10.30am on Thursday 18th June 2020, a Judicial Review was held at the High Court in London with participants appearing remotely due to the ongoing coronavirus restrictions. In case number CO/4688/2019, Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn –v– The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and the Chief Constable of Northamptonshire Police, lawyers for Harry Dunn's family brought the review against the joint defendants, accusing them both of shambolic and potentially illegal behaviour throughout the aftermath of the tragedy, including misconduct in public office by the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

Key documents were presented before Lord Justice Flaux in court, including top secret agreements dating from the mid-1990s between the FCO and the US Embassy in London, apparently giving workers at RAF Croughton diplomatic immunity. The secret 1990s documents revealed that RAF Croughton was to be known then as the Regional Information Technical Centre for the US DoD. But the legal status of these arrangements and in particular whether they applied to spouses is at the crux of the case. Another key feature is the stipulation from the UK government that the US waives any immunity from prosecution for acts performed by RAF Croughton personnel outside their normal official duties.

The Judicial Review bundle of documents included these top secret memos, plus the emails between Northamptonshire Police's detective inspector Louise Hemingway of the Serious Collision Investigation Unit, the police press office and high-ranking Foreign Office officials after the August 2019 incident. They revealed that Jonathan Sacoolas was treated as a witness to the crash and so was one of their children. This confirms that Jonathan Sacoolas was travelling in his own car ahead of his wife as the crash happened and that one of their children was in the crash car with their mother. Rather disingenuously, in one secret memo, Jonathan Sacoolas was referred to as Embassy Administrative and Technical (A & T) staff.

The hearing, which was just a Case Management Conference, lasted until 1.20pm and a substantive court case was set for two days in November 2020.

Andrea Leadsom MP urges halting RAF Croughton's expansion while Sacoolas evades justice

In an impassioned speech in Parliament on 9th July 2020, the local MP for South Northamptonshire Andrea Leadsom urged the planning application for a massive expansion programme to be put on hold while Anne Sacoolas continues to evade due process. The plans (ref S/2020/1029/FUL) are for new antenna radomes and security infrastructure for the US DoD's Modernisation of Enterprise Terminals (MET) programme.

Andrea Leadsom MP on RAF Croughton expansion

Click to watch on YouTube

Academic Allstar

Clearly, Jonathan Sacoolas was destined for great things at South Salem High School in Oregon where he grew up. He and other students were profiled in a special "Academic Allstars" feature in Oregon's Statesman Journal in June 1994. The gushing headline declared, "These are the student leaders inside and outside the classroom".

His own personal citation reads, "Jon is a leader in the science classroom with his scholarship, practical expertise, co-operative effort and attitude. His contributions to extra-curricular science activities and projects have also been outstanding".

No wonder that he got the "tap on the shoulder" from the Secret Service, eh? His high-flying Class Of '94 school pal, stood near him in the photo, Sara Yunker (Sara LeRoy) is now principal of North Salem High School.

TCOM airborne surveillance test hangar
Academic Allstars: Jon Sacoolas (centre, in white Stanford shirt) at South Salem High School 1994
Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon, Friday 10th June 1994

Seated (L-R) Katy Ogdahl, Lisa Bloedel and Kelly Bonser
Standing (L-R) Matt Olsen, Mikkel Johnsen, Sarah Heintz, Rob Bentley, Lindsay Lightner, Matt Haines, Kyle Sandstrom,
JON SACOOLAS, Brandon Hadley, Jessica Lyons, Sara Yunker, Jon Francis and Jon Campbell
Jonathan Sacoolas CIA / NSA Special Collection Service Intelligence Officer
Jonathan Sacoolas, CIA / NSA Special Collection Service Intelligence Officer
On his driveway in Herndon, Virginia, December 2019
© Sky News – watch video on YouTube
Jonathan Sacoolas CIA / NSA Special Collection Service Intelligence Officer
Jonathan Sacoolas, CIA / NSA Special Collection Service Intelligence Officer
On his driveway in Herndon, Virginia, December 2019
© Sky News – watch video on YouTube
TCOM airborne surveillance test hangar
TCOM airborne surveillance test hangar, Elizabeth City, North Carolina
© TCOM
Davis Bay Road, Elizabeth City, NC 27909
Jonathan Sacoolas's rented bungalow on Davis Bay Road, next to TCOM, Elizabeth City, North Carolina
Image from real estate listing
Jonathan Sacoolas mansion in Westford Drive, Vienna, VA 22182
Puzzle Palace: Former Sacoolas family mansion in Westford Drive, Vienna, VA 22182
Google Street View imagery from November 2012, previous occupants
Google Street View
Jonathan Sacoolas mansion in Westford Drive, Vienna, VA 22182
CIA Deep (end) Cover: Swimming pool (pictured in July 2014, previous owners) around the back
of the former Sacoolas family mansion in Westford Drive, Vienna, VA 22182
Image from real estate listing
Jonathan Sacoolas swimming pool
Safety first: The Sacoolas mansion's swimming pool was surrounded by fencing in 2015
Image from real estate listing
Jonathan Sacoolas family portrait
I Spy Jonathan Sacoolas in a family portrait
Image from real estate listing
Jonathan Sacoolas family portrait
Intimate CIA Secrets exposed
Was it wise to leave the family picture out when the real estate agent came?
Image from real estate listing
Jonathan Sacoolas family portrait
Sacoolas family portrait: if only I had the FBI's photo enhancement skills
Image from real estate listing
Jonathan Sacoolas books
Sacoolas book collection and exercise machines
Image from real estate listing
Jonathan Sacoolas family boxes
CIA dead drop boxes for Jon and Anne Sacoolas (children's names censored by me)
Image from real estate listing
Jonathan Sacoolas measuring ruler
Anne Sacoolas is careful, meticulous and precise ...
... measuring her children's heights
Image from real estate listing
Jonathan Sacoolas measuring ruler
Sacoolas: a byword for "care" and "precision"
Image from real estate listing
Anne Sacoolas teaching children road layouts
Anne Sacoolas making sure even her youngest children are familiar with road layouts
Image from real estate listing
Jonathan Sacoolas score card at Blue Ridge Arsenal
Jonathan Sacoolas IDPA member number A43414
International Defensive Pistol Association
Score card from September 2011 at the Blue Ridge Arsenal
indoor firing range, Chantilly, Virginia, VA 20151
SSP = Stock Service Pistol; ESP = Enhanced Service Pistol; CDP = Custom Defensive Pistol
EX = Expert; SS = Sharp Shooter; MM = Marksman; UN = Unclassified
Document
Jonathan Sacoolas FCC amateur radio licence
Jonathan Sacoolas FCC amateur radio licence

The Sacoolas family and name origins

Anne Sacoolas was born Anne Elizabeth Goodwin and is originally from Aiken, South Carolina. She was educated at South Aiken High School and the University of South Carolina – where she graduated in Psychology. She married Jonathan Sacoolas in April 2003 in Fairfax, Virginia.

Jonathan Sacoolas was born in Santa Clara, California but attended South Salem High School in Oregon, where his parents John and Maureen still live. He graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in Electrical Engineering. His late grandfather George Vernon Kearney (his mother Maureen's father) also graduated in the same subject in 1951 in Pittsburgh, after serving with the Air Force during WWII. According to his obituary, he had a "distinguished career in the missile and space industry".

The Aiken Standard newspaper carried the full details of the ceremony held at the Wakefield Chapel, Annandale, VA. The Rev. Dan Piekarski officiated and the greeting and prayer were given by Stanley C. Rodgers, cousin of the bride.

The bride is a daughter of Mary Jon S. Goodwin of Aiken and Philip Gary Goodwin of Providence, Rhode Island. She is a granddaughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. William Carlisle Stanley and the late Mr. and Mrs. James Gordon Goodwin.

The bridegroom is a son of Mr. and Mrs. John Sacoolas of Salem, OR. He is a grandson of Mr. George Kearney and the late Dorothy Kearney and the late Mr. and Mrs. Larry Sacoolas. Ms. Susan Frances Goodwin of Los Angeles, CA, sister of the bride, was the maid of honor. Bridesmaids were Christina Sacoolas of Salem, OR, sister of the groom, and Marrah McClelland of Boston, MA.

David Sacoolas of Salem OR, brother of the groom, was the best man. Groomsmen were Ryan Bertani of McLean, VA, Anthony Aligo of Washington, DC and Aaron Howard of Salem, OR.

Following a reception in Cabell's Mill. Centerville, VA, the couple left for a wedding trip to Costa Rica.

The Sacoolas surname (sometimes with the spelling "Sacoulas") seems to be of Greek origin as Jean Southworth – a Salem, Oregon friend of Jonathan's parents John and Maureen Sacoolas – helpfully points out on a blog detailing her sunshine travels with award-winning Salem pastel artist James Southworth ("Jim").

As the Aiken Standard wedding announcement stated at the time, in 2003 Jonathan was working for the US Department of Defence and Anne was employed by the US State Department in Washington, but no further details are currently available.

CIA spy Anne Sacoolas
Greek tragedy: the Sacoolas name origins
Jean Southworth blog

Poodle and Master

On 20th December, just a few days before Christmas 2019, Anne Sacoolas was formally charged by Northamptonshire Police with causing "death by dangerous driving". She still refused to return to the UK voluntarily. Furthermore, US authorities threatened the UK Government – warning that extradition proceedings would be "unhelpful" to the so-called "special" UKUSA relationship.

At times like this, "special" seems to mean "one way only" and the relationship resembles that of a faithful poodle and his master. It has long been suspected that the US treats the UK as their "unsinkable aircraft carrier".

Slipping out of the UK and slipping back into normal life

Newspaper photographers and TV news cameramen pictured Anne Sacoolas settling back into normal home life, setting off from the drive of the family's rented four-bedroom house in the Crestbrook community of Herndon, Virginia, taking her children to school and filling-up at the local garage.

In February 2020, UK newspapers suggested that Anne Sacoolas actually held a more senior position than her husband, with media outlets finally naming her as a CIA officer. It also became apparent that Mrs Sacoolas had been dealt with back home for previous driving offences suggesting carelessness and lack of attention. In 2000, Jonathan Sacoolas himself pleaded guilty to reckless speeding when he was caught doing over 90mph in a 65mph zone in Loudoun County, Virginia. In 2013 he was fined for failing to obey a highway sign in Reston.

In yet a further cruel blow to Harry's family, in March 2020 it transpired that Anne Sacoolas – a fluent Russian speaker – had since been promoted to a new post at CIA Langley HQ. As someone so proficient in the language, it is likely she is involved in countering cyber attacks and organised crime emanating from that country, or perhaps simply acting as a translator.

Despite Harry's tragedy, the dangerous driving by RAF Croughton staff continued regardless – even involving a collision with a police car (thankfully without injuries). One example from January 2020 was captured on a car's dashcam, in rainy conditions too. If that wasn't bad enough, on 22nd April 2020, an American RAF Croughton worker's car crashed into a dry stone wall on a sharp bend in the village of Aynho just a couple of miles to the west of the spy base.

Lecture at Chicksands JITG spy centre

In late April 2020, UK media outlets reported that Anne Sacoolas was due to give a lecture later in the year at the Defence College of Intelligence within JITG – the Joint Intelligence Training Group at another infamous American spy station at Chicksands near Shefford in Bedfordshire. Obviously, if that lecture actually goes ahead she will no doubt be rendered into and out of the UK by CIA jet through RAF Northolt or Farnborough Airport – both of which are very "spook"-friendly. I cover the Chicksands spy base in detail in this section.

When taking up residence at Croughton in Summer 2019, the Sacoolas family were allocated the mailing address PSC 50, Box 516, APO AE 09494, which is a special PO Box used by American military personnel working abroad. AE 09494 is the code for RAF Croughton's on-base housing liason centre. APO means Army / Air Force Post Office, AE denotes Armed Forces Europe (plus Middle East, Africa and Canada) and PSC is Postal Service Centre.

US Embassy in Vienna, Austria

Another previous military forwarding address for Jonathan Sacoolas is publicly listed as Unit 9900, Box 32, DPO, AE 09701, which is the US Embassy in Vienna (Austria, not Virginia). This time, DPO is a reference to Diplomatic Post Office, but that still doesn't make him an actual diplomat. Remember that, for example, MI6 officers routinely masquerade as Embassy staff in foreign countries under cover of titles like "Second Secretary". Also using the exact same DoD mailing address at the US Embassy in Vienna are the couple Julius Joe SCHWARCZ and Sherry Anne SCHWARCZ currently living in Danville, Ohio, but previously Alexandria, Virginia and Naples, Florida. The jigsaw pieces are coming together.

Among many units, Croughton is home to the 422nd Communications Squadron of the 501st Combat Support Wing, which should give a clue to Jonathan's function. Back home in their rented four bedroom house in Herndon, Virginia, Jonathan and Anne Sacoolas use PO Box 753 at the US Postal Office in Main Street, Stephens City, VA 22655. It is the address used by local rental agents MAP Property Solutions LLC.

NSA / CIA Special Collection Service

The NSA and CIA run a joint covert operation codenamed F6 and known as the Special Collection Service, which deploys highly specialised communications interception equipment in worldwide embassy buildings.

Notably, the SCS used RAF Croughton as a relay station to beam back to a joint CIA / NSA data centre in Beltsville, Maryland, the signals collected from the systematic bugging of Angela Merkel's mobile phone. The 2013 Edward Snowden leaks revealed that the SCS activities are part of a global programme of eavesdropping codenamed STATEROOM.

SCS documents leaked by Snowden list RAF Croughton as a "technical support" facility and the US Embassy building in Vienna as a key intercept site. The CIA and NSA refer to RAF Croughton as their Regional European Support Centre (RESC).

Remember that Jonathan Sacoolas obtained his ham radio licence through the Laurel Amateur Radio Club in Maryland ... close to the Special Collection Service HQ and Beltsville data centre – in Laurel, Maryland.

If you are into collecting military challenge coins you might be interested in one offered for sale on eBay in May 2020, from specialists Coin Squadron based in Washington Crossing, Philadelphia. On one side of the $500 coin it reads "Regional European Support Center" and "Team RESCue". On the other, a scene is depicted of the Croughton radomes, a satellite dish pointing to the sky and a sheep in the fields next to the A43, all against a backdrop of US and UK flags joined together.

Rather tellingly, the item's title on eBay includes keywords NSA and GCHQ. In Latin, the motto reads "Possesiuncula fundus grandis globus" which is probably a US intelligence officer's translation of something like "Through small possessions come the foundation of a great world". Those "small possessions" are no doubt the intercepts of embassy communications routed through Croughton back to the CIA and NSA.

RAF Croughton challenge coin NSA GCHQ RESC
RAF Croughton Challenge Coin
Regional European Support Center, Team RESCue
"Possesiuncula fundus grandis globus"
"Through small possessions come the foundation of a great world"
NSA / CIA SCS Special Collection Service Beltsville Information Management Centre
CIA / NSA Beltsville Information Management Centre
Laurel, Maryland, MD 20708
Google Maps 3D
NSA / CIA SCS Beltsville Information Management Centre
Special Collection Service HQ, 11600 Springfield Road, Laurel, Maryland, MD 20708 (left)
Beltsville Information Management Centre, 8101 Odell Road, Laurel, Maryland, MD 20708 (right)
Google Maps 3D

Was infamous US defence contractor Northrop Grumman involved?

Some newspapers reported that CIA officer Anne Sacoolas, her husband – NSA / CIA technical operations expert Jonathan Sacoolas – and children were returned to their Virginia home by CIA jet sent in from Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The US Embassy insisted to Mail on Sunday journalists I spoke to that the family made use of a scheduled flight. The truth, as ever, is hard to pin down. I decided to scrutinise the database logs from my radar system which picks up transponder broadcasts.

I downloaded the data for the days leading up to 16th September 2019 when it was announced that the fugitive from justice had been spirited out of the UK by the US Secret Service. I noticed something quite interesting – which may, of course, have an alternative entirely straightforward explanation. But bear with me and consider the strong circumstantial evidence.

Mode-S ADS-B antenna range
Radar coverage
N37NG Northrop Grumman Gulfstream G550
Northrop Grumman N37NG
Gulfstream G550 jet
© Ryan Scottini
My radar system is located in Stockport near Manchester International Airport and is a professional roof-mounted antenna with an impressive radius of reception (pictured). It had detected a Gulfstream G550 business jet (of the type favoured by the CIA in clandestine operations) which is actually registered to notorious US defence contractor Northrop Grumman, with countless lucrative contracts with the highest levels of US Government. They developed the B-2 Stealth Bomber.

The Gulfstream jet – fitted with 20 executive seats – was manufactured in 2018 and was registered as N37NG in April 2019 by Northrop at their Hornet Way, El Segundo, Los Angeles, California plant where 3000 employees work.

Gulfstream G550, airframe designator code GLF5, registration N37NG, emitting transponder code A432A5, flew into the UK early in the morning of Thursday 12th September 2019. My antenna first detected it at a cruising altitude of 41,000 ft over Navan in County Meath, Ireland at 5.51am (British Summer Time; 04.51 UTC), as indicated by the Lat[itude], Lon[gitude] and Alt[itude] read-outs.

It descended to 16,425 ft by 6.20am BST, at which point the on-board transponder revealed it was still reducing altitude at a rate of 1984 ft per minute (suggesting an imminent landing) and I lost the signal – above Towcester in Northamptonshire, coincidentally not far from Croughton.

Oh, and by the way, the various aircraft tracking websites (FlightRadar24, FlightAware et al) don't fill in the gaps – because the transponder has been excluded at the specific request of Northrop Grumman executives. It is therefore entirely possible that it continued on its 120° heading towards Germany and the NATO base at Ramstein. But again, I remind you that while above Towcester, it was reducing altitude at almost 2000 feet per minute suggesting a landing very soon.

The Stansted connection

On the afternoon of Sunday 15th September at 2.38pm BST, I picked up the Northrop Grumman G550 Gulfstream again as it was gently climbing at 128 ft per minute over Didcot and Wallingford in Oxfordshire at 21,025 ft. I lost the signal as it went beyond my antenna's reach as the jet had climbed to 40,000 ft just short of the south east coast of Ireland near Cork at 3.11pm BST on a heading of 276° (west towards North America). Again, it is possible that the Sunday flight originated at Ramstein well before it popped-up on my radar screen.

However, plane spotters confirm that N37NG was on the ground at London Stansted Airport on the afternoon of Sunday 15th September 2019 and it had actually landed at Stansted on Thursday 12th September at 6.37am, just 17 minutes after I had lost the signal over Towcester as it was descending rapidly.

USAF Mildenhall and the Space-A MAC flights

While you can imagine hardened career spooks Jonathan and Anne Sacoolas accepting an emergency flight home strapped into a military transporter like a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, Boeing C-17 Globemaster or Lockheed C-130 Hercules, it seemed more likely that they and their young children would have been more comfortable in a luxury executive jet like a Gulfstream. But it is still a strong possibility that places were arranged on board a Space A (Space Available) MAC flight (Military Airlift Command) from the US Air Base at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk. These allow US government employees a route home on military cargo planes, but the military mission takes priority and the passengers are essentially just extra cargo.

My radar system detected many C-130 planes on Sunday 15th September 2019, the day the Sacoolas family was extracted. One in particular, I have been able to establish through spotter forums, landed at RAF Mildenhall in the autumn afternoon sun. It was the US Navy's Hercules transporter registration 164598 with the transponder AE03D5. My radar also picked it up on Thursday 12th September. Could this be the Mildenhall Space-A MAC flight that Anne and Jonathan Sacoolas used to get back home?

US Navy C-130 164598 AE03D5
The Sacoolas Space-A MAC flight home?
US Navy C-130, registration 164598, transponder AE03D5
USAF Mildenhall, Sunday 15th September 2019
© Gary Chadwick – FighterControl.co.uk forum user "reaperops"
The very next day, Monday 16th September 2019 it was begrudgingly admitted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to Northamptonshire Police that both the Sacoolas CIA intelligence operatives and their children had completed their magic disappearing act. But the FCO told the police to keep quiet until they'd got "everything in order". Or as the FCO official put it in a text message that will now haunt him, "ducks in a row". Shockingly, the grieving Dunn family were kept in the dark about this key development until the end of the month.

Big picture emerging: US DoD drone attacks and the RAF Croughton link

If the Northrop Grumman flights really are linked to the Sacoolas debacle, then it would surely hint at Jonathan Sacoolas being a Northrop Grumman employee (or perhaps more likely an embedded "spook" overseeing classified projects), while his wife is at the CIA. It could even indicate that the CIA uses Northrop Grumman business jets as convenient cover.

This is by no means just a fanciful thought, as Northrop are known to be heavily involved in the global eavesdropping network known as Echelon, of which the UK plays a key part at the NSA's satellite intercept listening station at Menwith Hill near Harrogate, North Yorkshire. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are also on the list of "usual suspects" there. Of course you will quickly note that there are several Northrop Grumman offices in Virginia around the Sacoolas family home in Herndon.

Furthermore, Northrop Grumman are key developers of Unmanned Aerial Systems ("drones" in the common parlance). It is well known that US DoD drone attacks in the "War on Terror" are performed through the command and control communication lines going through RAF Croughton. Are you beginning to see the big picture emerge?

It would seem that back in September 2019, Jonathan Sacoolas sent an "Urgent Exit Required" text to his highly placed contacts.

More recently, I detected N37NG on Sunday 1st March 2020 between 7.02pm GMT (cruising at 41,000 ft over Milford Haven in South Wales) and 7.24pm GMT (at 23,675 ft over Lacock near Chippenham and descending at 2304 ft per minute). It was confirmed on the ground by plane spotters at London Stansted Airport, arriving at 7.58pm. The return journey on the morning of Tuesday 3rd March triggered my radar when the Gulfstream jet was at 20,700 ft and I lost its signal at 40,000 ft. Although I tracked it between 7.54am GMT and 8.20am GMT, this time the transponder did not provide any data apart from just the altitude.

Had the pilot only just realised – too late – that it had been broadcasting its full revealing data on previous journeys?

As an aside, I have also detected flights by Northrop Grumman's slightly older (2015) Gulfstream G550, registered N38NG and emitting the transponder code A45A24. That one was spotted on the ground at London Stansted Airport on 22nd October 2019 and at London Luton Airport in July 2018. Meanwhile, N37NG does get around a bit: it was photographed by Japanese spotters at Fukushima Airport on 27th October 2019.

Northrop Grumman has offices in several locations across the UK, mainly associated with ongoing support of the Boeing E-3D Sentry AWACS early warning aircraft at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. Elsewhere, maritime navigation and communications systems are worked on in Barrow-in-Furness, Livingston, Grimsby and New Malden at old Sperry Marine and Racal Decca Radar locations. Air traffic control systems are developed "out in the sticks" at Market Deeping near Peterborough and military command and control systems are catered for on the south coast in Fareham.

Northrop Grumman UK are also behind a major cyber security defence operation, but that is naturally located near GCHQ in Cheltenham (probably the heavily-fortified Lockheed Martin Cyber Works), plus a facility in Manchester. Hey, there's also a Northrop Grumman office in Langley. That's Langley, Slough.

It would be a very strange coincidence that a team of Northrop Grumman executives would be travelling back to the USA on the same day the CIA spies Anne and Jonathan Sacoolas and their children were being evacuated. Stansted Airport isn't convenient for any of the Northrop Grumman UK locations, apart from the New Malden Sperry Marine office and that's the opposite side of London completely. In any case, why would US executives need to be shuttled in and out in person and so urgently? Have they not heard of Skype? The timings of the N37NG flights really do require further scrutiny.

Interpol Red Notice

Eventually, on 11th May 2020, after much pressure exerted by lawyers for the Dunn family, an Interpol Red Notice was issued internationally for the arrest of Anne Sacoolas should she attempt to leave the USA. Largely academic but at the very least, this indicates that the UK government has finally admitted that she didn't have the diplomatic immunity we all knew she wasn't entitled to in the first instance. She'll be stuck behind her desk at CIA Langley HQ for quite a while. Unless, of course, she sneaks out on a clandestine CIA executive jet.

Northrop Grumman and CIA spy Anne Sacoolas
Northrop Grumman Gulfstream G550 (N37NG), transponder A432A5, spirits the Sacoolas family out of the UK?
Scroll / swipe to see full data (on mobiles / tablets)
Copyright © www.secret-bases.co.uk
Northrop Grumman and CIA spy Anne Sacoolas
Northrop Grumman Gulfstream G550 N37NG and N38NG flying in and out above the UK
Scroll / swipe to see full data
Copyright © www.secret-bases.co.uk
CIA spy Anne Sacoolas
Filling up: CIA's Anne Sacoolas safely back home and at the gas station
Copyright © Jamie Wiseman
www.jamiewiseman.com
CIA spy Anne Sacoolas
Close-up: Anne Sacoolas in February 2020
© The Mega Agency
CIA spy Anne Sacoolas
The Sacoolas family's rented house in Herndon, Virginia
Image from real estate listing
CIA spy Anne Sacoolas
The Sacoolas family's rented house in Herndon, Virginia
Image from real estate listing
CIA spy Anne Sacoolas
CIA Laundering Operations: the Sacoolas family's utility room
Image from real estate listing
CIA spy Anne Sacoolas
Spook country: The Sacoolas family's rented house in Herndon, Virginia
Google Maps 3D
CIA spy Anne Sacoolas
A previous Sacoolas home in Oldfield Drive, Reston, VA 20191
Google Street View
CIA spy Anne Sacoolas
The first Sacoolas marital home in Stanmoor Terrace, Sterling, VA 20165
Image from real estate listing
CIA spy Anne Sacoolas
CIA Drop Box: Jonathan and Anne Sacoolas use PO Box 753 at US Postal Service in Stephens City, VA 22655
Google Street View
CIA spy Anne Sacoolas
Anne Sacoolas taking the children to school just before Christmas 2019
© ITV News
CIA spy Anne Sacoolas
CIA spy Anne Sacoolas on a family holiday
© Sky News
Motorcycle convoy passes RAF Croughton main entrance in Harry Dunn tribute
A motorcycle convoy passes RAF Croughton's main entrance in tribute to Harry Dunn
© Andrew Matthews / PA
RAF Croughton driving on the wrong side of the road
RAF Croughton near miss
Staff still driving on the wrong side of the road
RAF Croughton driving on the wrong side of the road
Yet another RAF Croughton wrong side of the road incident in February 2020
RAF Croughton worker crashes into a wall
RAF Croughton worker crashes into a wall in the neighbouring village of Aynho
Photo courtesy of Radd Seiger
Adviser and spokesman for the family of Harry Dunn
RAF Croughton worker crashes into a wall
RAF Croughton worker crashes into a wall in the neighbouring village of Aynho
RAF Croughton worker crashes into a wall
Location of wall in Aynho where the RAF Croughton worker crashed in April 2020
Google Street View

December 2017: US Department of Defense contractors steal from UK Secret Bases website!

In 2013, RAF Croughton was implicated in routing back to Washington the NSA phone tap on German chancellor Angela Merkel. In March 2016, a major upgrade to RAF Croughton's Satellite Communications (SATCOM) was revealed when the UK Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) and prime contractors Mott MacDonald and HLM Architects submitted a very detailed planning application (S/2016/0791/MAF) to South Northamptonshire Council.

The plans show a new windowless mission building "PL1" (Priority Level 1) and an antenna field comprising six new "golf ball" radomes, to provide the next generation of US DoD command and control data and voice lines to military operations, to be known collectively as the Joint Intelligence Analysis Complex (JIAC).

In a major embarrassment to US and UK military authorities, Mott MacDonald and HLM Architects decided it would be a jolly good idea to lift from THIS website an exclusive copyright protected aerial image ("Pilot's Eye", below) of the existing antenna radomes at RAF Croughton, without prior permission, payment or even any accreditation! It is used in Section 2.3, "Site Analysis" of the application's Design and Access Statement document [PDF, 9MB], complete with my protective watermarking.

I approached senior management at each company for comment in early December 2017, as soon as I was made aware of this shocking situation. They refused to respond to my emails and calls for almost a week, until finally being prompted by a story by global technology news outlet The Register. I also furnished HLM Architects with the proof of exclusive publishing rights they doubted I had under my belt. The expert pilot and aerial photographer emailed me on the morning of the Register story. It made it to infamous rogue US secrecy-busting website Cryptome too, with the headline "RAF Croughton spies caught!" Just before Christmas 2017, the Cyber Security Intelligence news website covered the story.

Fancy that! You can just imagine the screaming newspaper headlines dropping on someone's desk in Whitehall: "US Department of Defense contractors steal from UK Secret Bases website". So much for the "special relationship", eh? More seriously, it is concerning that major defence contractors with such lucrative projects have such a poor grasp of corporate governance and due diligence procedures.

They can't claim a single "slip-up" that somehow got through supposed "rigorous checks and balances". Why? Because they stole another image by a professional pilot/aerial photographer from Damien Dyer's Airframe Photography Flickr photostream and used it in Section 4.0, Summary and Conclusions. My summary and conclusion? Serial offenders, it seems, and US DoD / UK MoD seem quite happy to deal with contractors who don't bother with pesky time consuming concepts like "due diligence".

Later in December 2017, following the Register news story and after discussions with in-house lawyers at HLM Architects, I came to an amicable confidential agreement and finally resolved the issue.
RAF Barford St. John
RAF Barford St. John
Barford St. John - Giant Voice
Barford St. John - Giant Voice
Giant Voice – the US military emergency tannoy system at Building 85, RAF Barford St. John
Architect plans © Cherwell District Council
Ground photo USAF / Tech. Sgt. Greg Bluethmann
Aerial photo
RAF Croughton
Aerial view of RAF Croughton
Google Maps
RAF Croughton
Pilot's Eye view: Looking east across RAF Croughton
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
RAF Croughton
Pilot's Eye view: Lifting the lid off one of RAF Croughton's radomes. Imagery so good apparently, that US DoD contractors Mott MacDonald and HLM Architects pinched it for use in their RAF Croughton planning application for the Joint Intelligence Analysis Complex (JIAC)
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
RAF Croughton Strava Heatmap
RAF Croughton on the Strava Heatmap showing joggers being tracked
Strava Heatmap

Skynet 5 – Military Communications Satellite Project

Permalink The tiny village of Oakhanger, near the Army camps of Bordon in Hampshire, at first sight looks like a typical cross between rural farming landscape and wealthy stockbroker belt. However, the village has not one but two surprises beyond its leafy hedged lanes.

Take a look at the map of the village centre and hidden among the cottages and farms is the old RAF Oakhanger 1001 Signals Unit (now staffed by Paradigm Services, a private commercial technology company which since 2013 has been known as Airbus Defence and Space). It is now home to military communications experts, working on the Government's new "Skynet 5" satellite project. The original RAF signals site is now Paradigm's "TCS" – Telemetry and Command Station.

To the east of Oakhanger village, within the Army training area known as The Warren, is an enclosure which on the 1:25000 OS map was suspiciously empty, until I noticed that the map was suddenly revised by OS in November 2004.

The map data sources do not indicate any MoD activity with tell-tale aerial symbols. It is left to Getmapping's aerial photography data to finally reveal all. It is the location for a key NATO Ground Terminal for military communications satellites. It is designated Satellite Ground Station (SGS) Oakhanger. Note that an additional ground terminal is set away from this main site in an annexe, just a little further south west, but connected via a track through the woodland. It is NATO's Satellite Ground Terminal designated SGT-F4.

Skynet 5A – the first stage of three military communications satellite platforms – was finally successfully launched into space on board an Ariane 5-ECA rocket from Arianespace's European Spaceport at Kourou in French Guiana at 10pm (UK GMT) on Sunday 11th March 2007. Skynet 5A was accompanied on Ariane's payload by an Indian TV satellite, the Insat 4B. The launch had been delayed from the previous day because of technical problems with sensors on the Spaceport's ELA-3 launch pad water deluge system, which provides acoustic damping during ignition and lift-off.

Skynet 5B had a provisional date set for 9th November 2007, but was delayed due to "an anomaly in the launch vehicle". Another launch window was arranged for Monday 12th November, but this was cancelled too when a fault was found during fuelling. The Ariane rocket finally lifted-off exactly 48 hours later at 10pm (UK GMT) on Wednesday 14th November and the 5B satellite was deployed 30 minutes into the mission. The other payload was a Thales Alenia Space satellite, which will be used by Brazilian operator Star One for communications, multimedia and broadband Internet services over South America.

Skynet 5C – an in-orbit spare back-up – was due to go into space on Friday 30th May 2008, but the launch was postponed after a software test showed a "non-nominal result". It was eventually successfully deployed on June 12th. Yet another, Skynet 5D, was launched in December 2012.

As revealed fully elsewhere in Secret Bases, Paradigm has other key Skynet 5 sites at Hawthorn, in the middle of a field in Corsham, Wiltshire and within RAF Colerne nearby, again sometimes referred to as a "disused airfield", but which is now Azimghur Barracks. The newly upgraded facility at Hawthorn is now known as Paradigm's Network and Spacecraft Operations Centre. In 2012, SGS Colerne was upgraded with additional dish antennae as revealed in architect drawings.

In 2016, Airbus Defence and Space – the new name for Paradigm – opened a Skynet ground station in a secure compound within the Speedcast teleport in Mawson Lakes, Adelaide, South Australia.

SGS Oakhanger
SGS Oakhanger annexe
TCS Oakhanger
SGS Colerne
Hawthorn Network and Spacecraft Operations Centre
Aerial views of Paradigm's Skynet 5 satellite command and control facilities (top to bottom) Oakhanger Satellite Ground Station (SGS), Oakhanger Satellite Ground Terminal SGT-F4, Oakhanger Telemetry and Command Station (TCS), SGS Colerne and Hawthorn Network and Spacecraft Operations Centre
SGS Colerne
SGS Colerne's 2012 upgrade with additional dish antennae (north east) as revealed in publicly available architect plans
© North Wiltshire District Council
All SGS Colerne planning documents
in ZIP folder (2Mb download) from Cryptome
SGS Colerne
SGS Colerne in October 2021
RAF Oakhanger
Pilot's Eye view: Looking south east over RAF Oakhanger showing SGS (left), SGT-F4 (right) and TCS (foreground)
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
SGS Oakhanger
Pilot's Eye view: Looking west over SGS Oakhanger
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
SGS Oakhanger
Pilot's Eye view: Looking south over SGS Oakhanger
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
Oakhanger TCS
Pilot's Eye view: Looking west over Oakhanger Telemetry and Command Station (TCS)
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
Oakhanger TCS
Pilot's Eye view: Looking south east over Oakhanger TCS
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
Oakhanger SGS annexe
Pilot's Eye view: Looking south west over Oakhanger SGT-F4
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
Skynet Mawson Lakes ground station
Airbus Defence and Space Skynet military satellite ground station (bottom right) at
Speedcast's Mawson Lakes teleport in Adelaide, South Australia
Google Maps 3D
Skynet Mawson Lakes ground station
Airbus Defence and Space Skynet military satellite ground station (bottom right) at
Speedcast's Mawson Lakes teleport in Adelaide, South Australia
Google Earth
Skynet Mawson Lakes ground station
Skynet military satellite ground station at
Speedcast's Mawson Lakes teleport in Adelaide, South Australia
Google Street View
Ariane 5-ECA Rocket launches Skynet 5A military satellite
Live webcam in March 2007 showing the Ariane 5-ECA rocket about to launch the Skynet 5A satellite into space at the European Spaceport, Kourou, French Guiana
Photo: www.arianespace.com
© Arianespace
Ariane 5-ECA Rocket launches Skynet 5B military satellite
Ariane 5-ECA rocket prepared to launch the Skynet 5B military satellite in November 2007
Photo: www.arianespace.com
© Arianespace
Skynet 5B military satellite is deployed in space
Skynet 5B is deployed at 10.30pm (GMT) on Wednesday 14th November 2007
Photo: www.arianespace.com
© Arianespace
Ariane 5-ECA Rocket launches Skynet 5A military satellite
Ariane 5-ECA rocket launches the Skynet 5A satellite into space at the European Spaceport, Kourou, French Guiana in March 2007
Photo: www.arianespace.com
© Arianespace
Ariane 5-ECA Rocket launches Skynet 5B military satellite
Ariane 5-ECA rocket launches the Skynet 5B satellite in November 2007
Photo: www.arianespace.com
© Arianespace
Ariane 5-ECA Rocket launches Skynet 5C military satellite
Ariane 5-ECA rocket launches the Skynet 5C satellite in June 2008
Photo: www.arianespace.com
© Arianespace
Until 2005, another satellite ground terminal could be found at the highly sensitive military communications base at Defford in Worcestershire, at the Croome Park Estate alongside the M5 motorway. This site once provided a home to the RAF's 1001 Signals Unit, but more recently QinetiQ (pronounced "kinetic"). This organisation represents the commercial sector wing of the Government's defence related research activities and was formed in July 2001 out of the old Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA). At the same time, the Government's top secret laboratories, retained under strict MoD control, were brought together to form the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) network.

RAF Defford was one of the key locations used for the development of radar technology. It then provided test facilities for the MoD's first Skynet military communications satellite programme. To the south east of Defford, past Eckington, the abandoned remains of a fenced-off Skynet satellite simulator test rig can be found on the western slope of Bredon Hill, just beneath the Banbury Stone Tower known as Parsons Folly.

QinetiQ's Defford base featured a high security enclave, which was built on top of the deserted runways, where all the really sensitive signals intelligence (SIGINT) work was carried out. Right up until the end of 2005, the enclave was one of those "sensitive" sites still "airbrushed" from both 1:50000 and 1:25000 OS maps, but curiously the Government's own MAGIC interactive mapping service always showed the full detail at 1:10000 scale.

In December 2005, Ordnance Survey revised the 1:25000 scale data on their Get-a-map service to show the secure SIGINT area on top of the runways. But this new openness was all too late for Defford.

Rumours had circulated in early 2005 that activities and staff numbers at QinetiQ's Defford site had been significantly reduced to a "care and maintenance" level. When I contacted QinetiQ's Customer Enquiries Team in June 2005, at their HQ within Cody Technology Park at the Farnborough Aerospace Centre, they would only reply cautiously, "We can confirm that Defford is no longer used as a QinetiQ site". Indeed, all that now remains on site is the radio telescope – part of the Jodrell Bank Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN).

Old QinetiQ Defford high security SIGINT enclave
Aerial view of the old QinetiQ Defford high security SIGINT enclave (now home to West Mercia Police!)
Defford Radio Telescope - part of MERLIN
Radio telescope at Defford – part of the Jodrell Bank MERLIN array, Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network
A little further research revealed that over previous years, QinetiQ had awarded a major contract to a specialist security company to upgrade the perimeter surveillance and control systems at Defford so that they could now be remotely observed and controlled by staff at their main site at Malvern, a few miles away (also described further below). The state of the SIGINT buildings on top of the runway at Defford (shown above in 1999) was therefore shrouded in even more mystery.

I pressed further and approached QinetiQ Malvern's Media Relations Office. An official spokesperson kindly furnished me with the information below. Furthermore, a quick trawl of the Internet soon got me the minutes of West Mercia Police Authority's 2005/2006 Budget Meeting held on 15th February 2005, which included the tantalising paragraph:-

"The Authority has also agreed to pursue negotiations for a lease of the former military base at Defford, near Pershore, which will reduce accommodation pressures in a number of areas including storage, driver and dog training, radio and vehicle workshops and Central Motorway Patrol Group".

A strategic review document published on the Internet in December 2005 revealed further intriguing proposals for West Mercia's new Defford base. It was suggested that it will be used for the force's "Protective Services" covering serious, organised and cross-border crime; public order; critical incident management; civil contingency planning and counter-terrorism. The document also hinted at a "national police organisation" being interested in relocating to Defford. Could this have been a reference to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) – the so-called British FBI and since October 2013 known as the National Crime Agency (NCA)?

Indeed, Defford was specifically mentioned in job advertisements placed in April 2019 for Detectives and Intelligence Analysts in the Southern Investigations Team for West Midlands Police Regional Organised Crime Unit (WMROCU).

"QinetiQ most recently managed military satellite communication services for the MoD from the site at Defford. This work was part of a contract known as Skynet. This contract ended in April 2004. Ongoing work in this area has been wrapped up into the Skynet 5 programme with an MoD contract awarded to Paradigm.

Despite making extensive efforts to secure more business for the Defford site, none was forthcoming. Therefore, Defford was deemed surplus to QinetiQ's requirements. QinetiQ secured a successful termination to its lease in June 2005. QinetiQ or the MoD never owned the site. We held a 25 year lease. The West Mercia Police have now taken on a lease at Defford.

Satellite equipment on site has been decommissioned or removed. Decisions about remaining buildings, including radomes, will be taken by West Mercia Police.

There are no QinetiQ staff left on site. Staff were moved to our Malvern site to work on other projects within QinetiQ's communications department.

Questions about future use of the site should be directed to West Mercia Police."
Official spokesperson
Media Relations Office, QinetiQ Malvern
(4th July 2005)

GCHQ Manchester

Permalink

Building contractor leaks internal GCHQ office layout pictures

Office for Communications Data Authorisations (OCDA) is co-located with GCHQ

GCHQ Manchester employee "outs" himself on LinkedIn

Thomas Devlan at GCHQ Manchester
GCHQ Manchester
LinkedIn profile
GCHQ Heron House, Manchester
GCHQ Heron House
Albert Square
Manchester
GCHQ Heron House, Manchester
OCDA – Snoopers' Charter
regulatory body is
co-located with GCHQ!
GCHQ is rumoured to have a Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) [i.e., "hacking"] facility in an anonymous office block somewhere around the Manchester Science Park area. It lies right on the 76° bearing line from NCA Warrington's roof antenna (see next section). It all has echoes of the infamous GCHQ Capenhurst Tower story. What do you think?

The GCHQ CNE site in Manchester advertised jobs between December 2014 and February 2015, asking for graduates in Software Engineering with experience in Java / JEE, C, C++, C# and Perl programming languages, object-oriented design (OOD) methodologies, plus Hadoop, NoSQL and other "Big Data" tools.

Numerous commercial data centre companies have also made use of the internet backbone hub around the Manchester Science Park. They have set up business in the Archway / Phoenix Way area, next to the Manchester Metropolitan University's (MMU) brand new Birley Campus, and also the Lloyd Street North area in the middle of Manchester University's campus.

GCHQ also opened a larger more general purpose Manchester office in late 2019. GCHQ has taken part of Heron House in the city centre's Albert Square opposite Manchester Town Hall. The 1980s office building (pictured further below) bounded by Lloyd Street, Lincoln Square and Brazennose Street is named after Sir Joseph Heron, a renowned Town Clerk of Manchester City Council during the 19th century.

Throughout 2018, Heron House was draped in Kier Construction tarpaulins while a major building upgrade project by 5 Plus Architects took place. All windows were replaced and the main entrance was remodelled. It is thought that GCHQ occupy upper floors of the six storey building.

The ground floor will remain as retail units for the likes of Wing's Chinese restaurant, the Slug and Lettuce bar, the ubiquitous Greggs bakery ... and Shirley's Sandwiches. The Heron House side entrance, designated 47 Lloyd Street, is currently still used by Manchester Register Office for the certification of births, marriages and deaths. Wedding parties are able to book the Pankhurst Suite for nuptials.

Manchester Council's Chief Executive signed an urgent confidential legal agreement [PDF] in November 2018 with a "specialist occupier" with "particular needs". The reasons for confidentiality and urgency were because "The Council has agreed terms with a specialist occupier to enter into a 15 year lease for office accommodation at Heron House. The completion of the agreements by 15th November 2018 are required to ensure that building works are completed to enable the tenant to take occupation by mid 2019. Any delay will impact upon the completion of works at the building to facilitate the tenant taking occupation. Given the letting, it is critical that the timescales are met".

The statue of Abraham Lincoln in neighbouring Lincoln Square will be a constant reminder to GCHQ Manchester's new employees that America's National Security Agency (NSA) is GCHQ's big brother.

GCHQ had also been rumoured to have been interested in the New Bailey Square development next to HMRC's Ralli Quays offices near Salford's Lowry Hotel and across the River Irwell from the old Granada Television studios. However, One New Bailey Square has already been fully occupied by international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and wealth managers WH Ireland. The construction of Two New Bailey Square, on the site of the demolished Ralli Courts, was not even scheduled for completion until December 2019.

In an exclusive news story in March 2020, I revealed that the regulatory body Office for Communications Data Authorisations (OCDA) responsible for overseeing the legality and proportionality of intercept warrants requested by MI5 and GCHQ ... is actually co-located with GCHQ Manchester inside Heron House. A snooper blooper. Read on through this section!

GCHQ Manchester employee "outs" himself on LinkedIn

Golden Lies film poster
Golden Lies
1916 film poster
In early March 2023 I spotted someone on LinkedIn apparently advertising the fact he works as a Forensic IT Analyst at GCHQ's Manchester base. He goes by the name Thomas Devlan and he even posted a high quality head shot photograph. The profile seems to have been on LinkedIn since 2018.

When I first broke this story, a simple image search using Google Lens didn't return any matches, apart from a few men with almost identical hair and glasses. So no perfect match, which is odd considering his distinctive left eye.

He states that he graduated from Cambridge University in 2008 with a First Class Honours (naturally) in Forensic Science and Technology, then spent three years at Microsoft, before arriving at GCHQ (presumably one of the Cheltenham sites) in, quite specifically, April 2011. So if he's already done more than 10 years, why would he think it's OK to plaster his image all over the internet?

Wherever "Thomas Devlan" got his LinkedIn picture from, the name he chose for LinkedIn should have given the game away. It was a character in a 1916 short film played by actor Bryant Washburn described as a "good-for-nothing" involved in a complicated international deception. The name of the film? "Golden Lies"!

Towards the end of March 2023, Google Lens suddenly started producing a match for "Thomas Devlan" at "GCHQ Manchester" and the picture was indeed a perfect match for the one posted on LinkedIn. However, the real person behind the picture is Christopher Hodson, a cyber security expert from Reading in the UK, but since January 2023 working at Cyberhaven in Palo Alto, California. He graduated – with distinction – with an MSc from Royal Holloway, University of London in 2016 on a course in Computer and Information Systems Security which is accredited by GCHQ.

He appears in a YouTube video on his subject of expertise. His real LinkedIn page doesn't mention working at GCHQ. The fake "Thomas Devlan" profile picture was lifted from a blog article featuring Christopher Hodson in December 2020 on computer security provider Tanium's website. Christopher has his own personal blog called Cyber Security Matters. He can be found on Twitter too.

Legal note: There is no suggestion that Christopher Hodson was responsible for the fake "Thomas Devlan / GCHQ Manchester" LinkedIn profile.

Another supposed GCHQ Manchester employee touting his services on LinkedIn as Tarquin Postlewaite purports to be a Cyber Security Officer based in Gloucestershire since 1996 but currently outsourced to GCHQ's Heron House, Manchester location. Tarquin claims to be a graduate of the University of Kent and lists his interests as Gloucestershire Constabulary and Raytheon. A pity the person behind that fake profile couldn't manage to spell the surname correctly: it should be Postlethwaite.

Tarquin Postlethwaite, apparently a comedy act, appeared at the Stirrup Cup Public House in the village of Barton Seagrave just off the A14 near Kettering, Northamptonshire in February 2014.

Thomas Devlan at GCHQ Manchester
Thomas Devlan tells the world he works as a Forensic IT Analyst at GCHQ Manchester
but his name is a clue to what's really going on!
Christopher Hodson at Cyberhaven
"Thomas Devlan" is really Christopher Hodson, from Reading, UK, currently security expert at Cyberhaven in Palo Alto, California
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
GCHQ Manchester in January 2020
© www.secret-bases.co.uk
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
Heron House, Albert Square, Manchester refurbished by Kier in 2019
Google Street View
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
Heron House, Albert Square, Manchester
Bing Bird's Eye
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
The old Heron House, Albert Square, Manchester in April 2017
Google Street View
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
GCHQ Heron House, Albert Square, Manchester almost complete in April 2019
Google Street View
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
GCHQ Manchester open for spooky business – January 2020
© www.secret-bases.co.uk
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
GCHQ Heron House security camera – January 2020
© www.secret-bases.co.uk
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House next to the Slug and Lettuce – January 2020
© www.secret-bases.co.uk
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
GCHQ Heron House entrance, Albert Square, Manchester – January 2020
© www.secret-bases.co.uk
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
GCHQ's revolving door
© www.secret-bases.co.uk
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
GCHQ Manchester foyer
© www.secret-bases.co.uk
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
GCHQ Heron House reception desk
© www.secret-bases.co.uk
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
Security turnstiles to the lifts up to GCHQ Manchester at Heron House
© www.secret-bases.co.uk
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
Looking back to the security turnstiles from the lifts at GCHQ Manchester reception
© 5 Plus Architects
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
Taking the lifts up to GCHQ Manchester at Heron House
© www.secret-bases.co.uk
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
Security guard and lifts up to GCHQ Manchester at Heron House
© www.secret-bases.co.uk
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House
© www.secret-bases.co.uk
GCHQ Manchester surveillance: how it was done, with a 240fps HD slow motion camera
© www.secret-bases.co.uk
Click to watch on YouTube

Snoopers' Charter: Home Office's OCDA in GCHQ Heron House

Building contractor leaks internal GCHQ office layout pictures

Office for Communications Data Authorisations (OCDA) ...
... is co-located with GCHQ!

GCHQ Heron House, Manchester
GCHQ Heron House, Manchester
OCDA – Snoopers' Charter
regulatory body is
co-located with GCHQ!
In January 2020, the UK Government's Home Office advertised jobs in Manchester city centre as OCDA Authorisation Officers at £24K – £27K and Operational Security Leads at £49K – £56K. The Office for Communications Data Authorisations (OCDA) is the new Home Office department dealing with intercept warrants covered by the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) 2016 – the so-called Snoopers' Charter.

OCDA operates from Manchester and also Birmingham (which deals with crime related communications data, rather than national security). The recruited personnel – UK nationals only – have to be vetted to Security Cleared (SC) level, with a view to obtaining Developed Vetting (DV) soon after employment.

Ultimately, the Birmingham OCDA will most likely be housed in the 3 Arena Central development, on the former site of the 1970s ATV television studios – between Broad Street and Holliday Street near the Gas Street canal basin. The Cabinet Office has taken a 25 year lease on the whole 14 storey building and plans to move several government departments in late 2020, including His Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP).

Imagine my delight when GCHQ Manchester's fit-out contractors TJM Projects – based next to St. Helens Rugby League stadium – plastered high resolution interior pictures of the GCHQ Heron House offices on their website. They describe it as a project for "Manchester City Council" – technically correct as the Council had initiated the renovation of Heron House for GCHQ. Much later, TJM featured further project images under the title Heron House, but still did not refer to GCHQ or OCDA.

The TJM contract was worth £500,000 and comprised "full internal refurbishment to CAT B including partitions, ceilings, bespoke manufactured joinery, electrical & mechanical works and furniture". It is also featured in their glossy brochure freely available for download. TJM's directors Matthew Burrows and Tony McCabe proudly featured the photos on Twitter on completion of the GCHQ project in August 2019.

In stark contrast to GCHQ's plush northern HQ with state of the art computer equipment, TJM has its humble joinery manufacturing facility at Atherton between Manchester and Wigan, on the site of the old Gib Field Colliery, Bag Lane Station's goods shed, an iron foundry and several nut, bolt and screw factories – all 1950s vintage.

TJM's motto – quoted on their Twitter account every day – is "the devil is in the detail". I agree. Crucially, one hi-res picture showed several frames hung on the wall of a corridor revealing the acronym OCDA.

The revelation that the regulatory body OCDA, supposedly overseeing operations under the Snoopers' Charter – the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) – is co-located with the UK's chief snoopers GCHQ in the same office block is likely to cause outrage within the civil liberties community.

In another gaffe, TJM published a hi-res picture of their re-fit of Ellice House on Wrexham's Vale Business Village next to Maelor Hospital, now used by Disclosure Services Limited. The company is an official Responsible Organisation (RO) authorised by the Home Office to perform background checks on behalf of the DBS Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly CRB, Criminal Records Bureau). The photo shows a white board displaying staff names and rotas.

Later in March 2020, the real estate news website BisNow picked-up on my exclusive.

While OCDA and other functions have windows on the outside face of Heron House, GCHQ have organised their layout so that they are protected and their windows face inwards towards the private centre courtyard.

GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
Corridors of power: Office for Communications Data Authorisations (OCDA) in Heron House
© TJM Projects Limited
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
OCDA picture frames on the wall in Heron House
© TJM Projects Limited
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
GCHQ Heron House hosting the Office for Communications Data Authorisations (OCDA)
Looking out to the State Bank of India (SBI) in Carlton House on the south side of Albert Square
© TJM Projects Limited
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
GCHQ Heron House – dual screen workstations
© TJM Projects Limited
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
OCDA meeting room in Heron House looking out to Manchester Town Hall
© TJM Projects Limited
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
OCDA meeting room looking out to Manchester Town Hall and the Albert Memorial in Albert Square
© TJM Projects Limited
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
OCDA reception desk in Heron House featuring a picture of Manchester's Bridgewater Viaduct over the Castlefield Canal Basin
© TJM Projects Limited
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
OCDA kitchen in Heron House
© TJM Projects Limited
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
Nearly there: TJM tidy-up at GCHQ Manchester's Heron House in June 2019
© TJM Projects Limited
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
GCHQ Manchester's Main Reception on an upper floor of Heron House
© TJM Projects Limited
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
GCHQ Manchester's Main Reception on an upper floor of Heron House
© GCHQ
GCHQ Manchester at Heron House, Albert Square
GCHQ Manchester's Main Reception on an upper floor of Heron House
© GCHQ
TJM Projects Matthew Burrows
TJM Projects director Matthew Burrows on Twitter
@mattburrows77
TJM Projects Tony McCabe
TJM Projects director Tony McCabe on Twitter
@tony_mccabe
DBS Disclosure Services, Ellice House, Vale Business Village, Wrexham
White board staff names and rotas at
DBS Disclosure Services, Ellice House, Vale Business Village, Wrexham
© TJM Projects Limited
TJM Projects at GCHQ Heron House
Crucial clue: TJM Projects working at Heron House in July 2019
Google Street View
TJM Projects, Atherton, Manchester
TJM's joinery factory in Atherton near Manchester
Google Street View
GCHQ Heron House roof cooling plant machinery
Up on the roof: GCHQ Heron House's new cooling plant machinery
Google Maps 3D
GCHQ Heron House roof cooling plant machinery
GCHQ Manchester up on the roof: before and after
Google Earth

Project Hydra – the many heads of SOCA / NCA: "The British FBI"

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... plus Leicestershire Police's "covert" base is exposed ... due to serious crime

... plus NERSOU – North East Regional Special Operations Unit

... plus SEROCU – South East Regional Organised Crime Unit

... plus NCA "outs" itself on Royal Mail's address database

... plus NCA Boldon Colliery, South Tyneside

Since its creation, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) / National Crime Agency (NCA) has been hiding behind "PO Box 8000" – an address administered at a Royal Mail depot close to Walworth Police Station in south east London. The real physical address of NCA's HQ is at the Spring Gardens office development at the appropriately named Citadel Place off Tinworth Street near Albert Embankment in Vauxhall, close to the HQs of both MI5 and MI6.

The locations of the new regional MI5 offices throughout the UK are obviously a closely guarded secret. However, the same is not really the case with those of SOCA/NCA. They have helpfully put them fully into the public domain by including them on Royal Mail's address database.

SOCA/NCA HQ, Serious Organised Crime Agency, Spring Gardens, Citadel Place, Vauxhall, London
SOCA/NCA HQ, Serious Organised Crime Agency / National Crime Agency, Spring Gardens, Citadel Place, Vauxhall, London
Google Street View
SOCA/NCA HQ, Serious Organised Crime Agency, Spring Gardens, Citadel Place, Vauxhall, London
NCA HQ finally goes public with a sign
As well as using various Police Force HQ conference facilities, the new regional NCA offices are used by the Agency to train officers in the handling of serious crime investigations using Hydra simulation techniques. The Hydra system was developed by Professor Jonathan Crego at the Centre for Critical Incident Research (CCIR) within Liverpool University's School of Psychology, who has also designed MINERVA simulations for more common everyday scenarios. Until 2012 he was a consultant with the Metropolitan Police Service and is now a visiting professor at several universities and director of the Hydra Foundation.

The official NCA website has posted adverts for the recruitment of Hydra Training Managers and specified a "secretive" job location somewhere in Harlow, Essex. The location was given away by a property developer who boasted of a newly refurbished building being leased to the "Home Office" for 20 years. It is Templefields House in River Way, Harlow – immediately adjacent to the Wincanton and Excel Logistics distribution hub for Comet.

The NCA facility in Harlow was previously a sales HQ for the giant Diageo corporation (owners of famous drinks manufacturing names including Guinness). For many years, the address was confusingly listed on databases as "SOCO" though. Rather plush offices for mere Scene of Crime Officers dusting for fingerprints. By late 2015, SOCA / NCA had obviously moved out of Templefields House, as a planning application at the local council revealed proposals to convert the building into 172 homes – 122 studio flats and 50 two-bedroom apartments. By late 2016, the Comet distribution centre had been demolished and replaced with a brand new industrial park called Midas – obviously hoping for a golden return on investment.

NCA Warrington

Airwave microwave tower, Winter Hill
Airwave microwave tower
Winter Hill
Rivington Moor
Bolton
The National Crime Agency also have a major northern HQ in Warrington (pictured further below) and it is used extensively in Hydra training. The NCA had hoped to establish it covertly in 2012, by pushing through a significant planning application without any proper consultation. But good old fashioned foul-ups ensured maximum publicity.

The noise and alleged damage to neighbouring houses caused by excavating the foundations and a data centre basement triggered numerous complaints from the residents association. Local councillors got involved to answer residents' anxious questions about a "top secret Home Office development" alongside the M6 motorway at Olympic House, Longbarn Boulevard, Birchwood.

Overflow parking and additional traffic on neighbouring residential streets generated by the hundreds of new NCA staff caused even more chaos. Things were no doubt made worse because next door in the existing building to the south east – formerly home to Cable & Wireless – the Home Office had already moved-in hundreds of Crown Prosecution Service personnel. In the end, NCA went fully public some time between 2013 and 2015 and put an official sign outside, just like the one at the London Spring Gardens HQ.

Between 2012 and 2015, the NCA installed three 1200mm microwave antenna dishes on the roof of the main plant room at Olympic House. Fully public planning documents at the local council reveal these dishes were very specifically aligned on compass bearings: one at 5° "towards Bolton"; another at 76° "towards Manchester"; and the final one at 246° "towards North Wales".

Perhaps "Bolton" refers to the major transmitter masts at Winter Hill, high up on Rivington Moor north west of Bolton, which include a TETRA / Airwave link. Maybe "North Wales" refers to the similar masts at Moel-y-Parc near Caerwys between Mold and Denbigh.

NCA Northern HQ, National Crime Agency, Olympic House, Longbarn Boulevard, Warrington
NCA National Crime Agency's Northern HQ at Olympic House, Longbarn Boulevard, Warrington. Plot of land for new NCA Olympic House (top) and Home Office's Crown Prosecution Service (lower right)
Google Aerial Photo Source
NCA Northern HQ, National Crime Agency, Olympic House, Longbarn Boulevard, Warrington
NCA National Crime Agency's Northern HQ at Olympic House, Longbarn Boulevard, Warrington
Bing Aerial Photo Source
CPS Crown Prosecution Service, Longbarn Boulevard, Warrington
Crown Prosecution Service, Longbarn Boulevard, Warrington
Google Street View
NCA Warrington
NCA Warrington
Google Street View
NCA Warrington data centre
NCA Warrington's data centre cooling plant machinery
Google Street View
NCA Warrington sign
NCA Warrington's external sign, added between 2013 and 2015
Google Street View
NCA Warrington on BBC series Fugitives
NCA Warrington featured on BBC series Fugitives
BBC series Fugitives
NCA Warrington
NCA Warrington
NCA Warrington plant room: Comparing the roof in 2012 (top) and 2015 (bottom) shows three 1200mm microwave antenna dishes that, according to public planning documents, have been very specifically aligned to 5° "towards Bolton", 76° "towards Manchester" and 246° "towards North Wales"
Google Street View
NCA Warrington microwave antenna plans
NCA Warrington's three 1200mm microwave antenna dishes, added between 2012 and 2015 on public planning drawings at Warrington Council
Winter Hill Airwave tower
Airwave microwave tower at Rivington Moor / Winter Hill near Bolton
On the 5° bearing from NCA Warrington
Google Maps

Gloucestershire Constabulary's Prism House – Specialist Crime Operations

You would have thought that Gloucestershire Constabulary has a big enough presence at its force HQ at Quedgeley near junction 12 of the M5 motorway. But yet another office block (pictured further below) was snapped-up directly opposite the HQ on the corner of Davy Way and Waterwells Drive. It was formerly home to optical supplier Signet Armorlite (SA) Europe, a Kodak Lens outlet.

The planning application for security upgrades during 2014 spoke of 24/7 operations, the sensitive nature of items stored on site and the need to secure operational vehicles. All this sounded like a covert facility being established on the quiet. But in July 2015, the newly named Prism House was officially opened with a veritable fanfare of publicity by the Police and Crime Commissioner, Martin Surl, beaming with pride.

Gloucestershire Constabulary Prism House before refurbishment
Gloucestershire Constabulary's Specialist Crime Operations, Prism House, Davy Way, Waterwells Drive, Quedgeley before security refurbishments – as Signet Armorlite (SA) Europe in 2012
Google Street View
Gloucestershire Constabulary Prism House after refurbishment
Gloucestershire Constabulary's Specialist Crime Operations, Prism House, Davy Way, Waterwells Drive, Quedgeley after the security refurbishments have been completed in 2015
Google Street View

Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU) Cramlington

Subtle clues in local council planning documents reveal that from 2005 until 2016, Northumbria Police operated a Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU) at Cramlington, seven miles north of Newcastle.

The covert facility moved into the former regional offices of British Gas / Transco at the Crosland Park development on Crowhall Road within the Nelson Industrial Estate. It is immediately next to the UK sales office for Norwegian maritime electronics specialists, Jotron. Note on the annotated aerial photo further below, there are plenty of bays for unmarked vehicles and the location provided strategic access to the area's road network including the A1 and A19.

However, in 2016 a property brochure [PDF, 1MB] revealed that this ROCU Cramlington base had obviously been vacated. Furthermore, a news story indicated that the ROCU function had been co-located with other major crime fighting forces under one roof at an undisclosed location as part of the North East Regional Special Operations Unit (NERSOU).

Regional Organised Crime Unit ROCU Cramlington
Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU) Cramlington at the former British Gas / Transco offices on Crowhall Road, Crosland Park, Nelson Industrial Estate. ROCU vacated this site in 2016
Google aerial photo source
Regional Organised Crime Unit ROCU Cramlington
Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU) Cramlington
Photo source
Regional Organised Crime Unit ROCU Cramlington
Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU) Cramlington (vacated 2016)
Google Street View

NERSOU – North East Regional Special Operations Unit

NERSOU has been long-established in the Northumbria Police force area and is co-located with a regional base of the National Crime Agency (NCA), according to public documents [PDF] published by the local Police and Crime Commissioner. However, as a specialist unit tasked with tackling serious organised crime, it was supposed to be a covert facility.

Through my forensic research, I have been aware of its precise location since its inception. Imagine my surprise when in 2018, the NCA decided to "out" itself by announcing its address on the Royal Mail database. By definition, the location was now widely in the public domain.

Back in 2008 – at the height of the global financial crash amid sub-prime lending scandals – Citigroup decided to offload their Citi Financial unsecured loans company, causing mass redundancies and the vacating of a large office block on the famous Doxford International Business Park in Sunderland, which they had occupied since 1998.

Unit 6 on Admiral Way – used by Citi Financial as a call centre – lay unoccupied for many years until it was eventually acquired by the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner for use by NCA and NERSOU (plus various other covert units). The facility is jointly owned by Northumbria, Cleveland and Durham Constabularies.

NCA National Crime Agency, Doxford International Business Park on Royal Mail database
NCA "outs" itself on
Royal Mail's database
Following an April 2017 planning application by NERSOU partner Durham Police to Sunderland Council (again, fully public), the building (pictured further below) – immediately next door to a Barclays Bank call centre – was fitted-out to NCA / NERSOU specifications and the site perimeter was "hardened".

Barclays staff – who had been using the redundant office's car park as a handy overflow – were politely evicted.

Then in 2018, some bright spark advertised the location on one of the most public, regularly accessed databases in the UK. Ironically, Royal Mail's Database Administration HQ is just a few hundred yards away on Admiral Way itself.

In an official Royal Mail update rolled-out nationally in August 2018, "National Crime Agency" appeared alongside "6, Admiral Way".

By December 2018, the entry had been reverted, but a few other examples still lurk in the address database: Concorde 2000 Building, Gatwick Airport, Horley, Surrey; Six Hills Court, Stevenage, Hertfordshire; College of Policing, Sunningdale Park, Ascot, Berkshire; and of course the Citadel Place HQ in London. More NCA offices tease and titillate with obscure Home Office acronyms like ISD (Interventions and Sanctions Directorate) and NDPB (Non-Departmental Public Body).

Citi Financial, Doxford International Business Park, Sunderland
2008: Citi Financial's former call centre at Unit 6, Admiral Way, Doxford International Business Park, Sunderland
Google Street View
NCA / NERSOU, Doxford International Business Park, Sunderland
2018: National Crime Agency (NCA) and North East Regional Special Operations Unit (NERSOU) at Unit 6, Admiral Way, Doxford International Business Park, Sunderland
Google Street View

SEROCU – South East Regional Organised Crime Unit

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Ooops, Thames Valley Police put their (square) foot in it

SEROCU
Just like NERSOU in the previous section above, the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU) was supposed to be covert but was exposed by another classic blunder by officials.

For many years, SEROCU had been the only regional organised crime unit not to have its own dedicated real estate, depending instead on sharing various existing police buildings. SEROCU is a collaboration between the Thames Valley, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire police forces and Thames Valley's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) published a detailed document outlining the force's acquisition of a base for SEROCU's Western Hub.

The document was so detailed that it completely gave away the precise location, by quoting the exact square footage of 41,646 and the fact that it was a freehold purchase and not an office lease. A simple search of Land Registry transactions revealed that £8,225,000 was handed over in August 2019 for the three buildings known together as Station Plaza, next door to Theale train station near Reading. The PCC report even gushed about how it was such great value for money and quoted the figure £198 per square foot. The total cost including refurbishment is in the region of £11,990,000 – shared between the four police authorities.

A trawl of the West Berkshire council portal returned planning documents submitted by Thames Valley Police Authority which clearly used the phrase Western Hub (but, admittedly, not SEROCU).

Station Plaza comprises Integralis House at the entrance to Chiltern Enterprise Centre, plus the two buildings forming Theale House at the train station roundabout. The whole site was previously home to NTT Security who moved out to nearby Arlington Business Park in 2019. Integralis was the previous company name for NTT Security. In earlier years, Theale House had also provided space for Daly International, Clarify Solution Selling, Plasma Surgical and even a DVLA customer office.

Of the three buildings, Integralis House ("Building C" in the PCC document) has already been refurbished and security hardened for use by SEROCU staff, while the two buildings forming Theale House ("Building A" and "Building B" in the PCC document) are fenced off, reserved for future refurbishment, perimeter hardening and usage by various Thames Valley Police (TVP) functions.

Property trade news websites excitedly reported the purchase of the Theale Station Plaza site from McKay Securities plc, quoting that same very precise 41,646 sq. ft. figure. It was the Thames Valley Police Authority's own Police and Crime Commissioner Anthony Stansfeld who put his (square) foot in it by placing way too much detail in the public domain. As a result of unconnected misconduct matters relating to abuse of power, Stansfeld did not seek re-election as PCC in May 2021.

Although Integralis House (SEROCU) has secured its perimeter and installed a bi-fold gate entrance, it seems less than an ideal situation sharing an access road with Chiltern Enterprise Centre.

Job adverts for SEROCU just refer to "Junction 12, M4" which of course Integralis House is right next to. Other adverts tease with "near Calcot, Reading" which is just to the east of M4 J12. The vague J12 M4 location description is also used for recruitment to the South East Counter Terrorism Unit (SECTU), now known as Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE). However, the precise location for that is NOT Theale's Station Plaza. I have agreed not to publish details on SECTU or other CTP units.

Older TVP adverts for SEROCU's various job functions within computer forensics mentioned Whitchurch, a town west of Basingstoke in Hampshire. These referred to the old Hampshire Police buildings on Dances Lane.

TVP have certainly been splashing the cash, as they have also acquired Atlantic House in Imperial Way, Reading for use as an area policing HQ. HM Land Registry's Price Paid Data reveals that it was purchased in July 2019 for £9,900,000.

Thames Valley Police's Theale House, Station Plaza
Thames Valley Police's Theale House, Station Plaza
Fenced-off and ready for future development in August 2021
Google Street View
Thames Valley Police's Theale House, Station Plaza
Thames Valley Police's Theale House, Station Plaza
Contractors hardening the perimeter in April 2021
Google Street View
Thames Valley Police's Theale House, Station Plaza
Thames Valley Police's Theale House, Station Plaza
Contractors hardening the perimeter in April 2021 – close-up
Google Street View
Thames Valley Police's Integralis House, Station Plaza, Theale
NTT Security's Integralis House, Station Plaza in 2010
Chiltern Enterprise Centre in the background
Google Street View
Thames Valley Police's SEROCU, Station Plaza, Theale
Thames Valley Police's SEROCU Western Hub, Station Plaza, Theale in August 2021
Perimeter hardening and bi-fold security gate have been installed,
but the gardener hasn't been yet and the NTT Security signs are still in place
Google Street View
Thames Valley Police's SEROCU, Station Plaza, Theale
Theale Station Plaza
Thames Valley Police SEROCU Western Hub (left), Theale House (right)
Copyright © Thames Valley Property

NCA Boldon Colliery, South Tyneside

NCA National Crime Agency, Boldon Colliery on Royal Mail database
NCA Boldon Colliery
on Royal Mail database
NCA National Crime Agency, Boldon Colliery
NCA Boldon ... gone
Another NCA covert location in the North East was vacated in 2018. Unit 4 on Didcot Way, Boldon Business Park, Boldon Colliery was originally used by the Regional Crime Squad of Northumbria Police and more recently the NCA based a specialist department there – the name of which is well known to (some) journalists.

The codeword for the highly sensitive function is even used on planning applications at the site, tucked away in the far NE corner of the business park and pictured further below. The local planning officers at South Tyneside Council assumed the codeword was a private company name.

During 2018 the secure building – at a strategic road network position close to A19 and A1 junctions – was totally refurbished and marketed in a glossy brochure [PDF, 1.5MB] by property agents as a warehouse / production unit with offices. Unit 4 at Didcot Way was eventually snapped-up by NHC Group who provide mobility equipment for care homes.

Throughout early 2019, Royal Mail's address database was continuing to list Unit 4 on Didcot Way as "The Service Authority" – an old name that referred to Home Office oversight of the former National Crime Squad, until SOCA was formed in April 2006.

Famous neighbours on the Didcot Way industrial estate include vehicle trim manufacturers Faltec Europe / Hashimoto – fined £1.6 million in 2018 for repeated serious health and safety breaches: the death of an employee due to a chemical spill; the blinding of another in a compressed air accident; a production line explosion; and a potentially fatal outbreak of Legionnaire's disease in water cooling towers. Hardly surprising that NCA moved out.

Even Cumbria Constabulary don't want to miss out on the secret squirrel stuff. They have a covert Technical Support Unit (TSU) on an industrial estate near the M6 in Penrith. Likewise, since at least 2006, Thames Valley Police have operated a covert Technical Support Unit on an industrial estate near Kidlington. It has a diesel generator out front and is ringed with tell-tale razor wire ... plus a glaring fake company sign "Technical Services" in a bizarre 1970s science fiction font.

Sussex Police Authority acquired an industrial unit near Gatwick Airport in 2007 as a "Criminal Justice Admin Support Unit" – according to the planning application for three huge CCTV towers in the car park to protect the facility. Local residents raised objections and the camera systems had to be designed with special measures so that no imagery was recorded in the direction of the houses nearby.

The mere "admin support" function apparently needs a backup diesel generator in a compound protected by anti-ram bollards. Again, according to planning documents, it is capable of running the site for ten days should the national grid supply fail. But there's also a nice picnic bench so staff can enjoy a packed lunch outside. Further key documents reveal that since the original acquisition by Sussex Police, it was soon joined by Surrey and Thames Valley Police forces.

Talking of Surrey, consider leafy suburbia in Chertsey. Bretlands Road contains some early 1970s traffic division garages – marked as such on OS maps from that era. They were due for disposal in cost cutting measures along with several police stations across the area. Three police houses on Bretlands Road were sold off in 2013 for a total of £861,750, but the police depot won a reprieve and the TSU guys installed themselves in a strategic position just a few minutes away from M25 J11.

National Crime Agency NCA Boldon Colliery
Former NCA covert unit at Didcot Way, Boldon Colliery, South Tyneside marketed by property agents in a brochure
Photo source
National Crime Agency NCA Boldon Colliery
Former NCA covert unit at Didcot Way, Boldon Colliery, South Tyneside – vacated in 2018
Google Street View
National Crime Agency NCA Boldon Colliery
Former NCA covert unit at Didcot Way, Boldon Colliery, South Tyneside (top right) and the Faltec Europe / Hashimoto plant (bottom)
Bing Bird's Eye
Cumbria Police TSU at Penrith
Cumbria Constabulary covert technical support unit (TSU) at Penrith alongside the M6
Thames Valley Police TSU at Kidlington
Thames Valley Police covert Technical Support Unit (TSU) near Kidlington, Oxfordshire
Thames Valley Police TSU at Kidlington
Out of this world: fake company sign in 1970s sci-fi font
Thames Valley Police covert TSU near Kidlington
Surrey and Sussex Police TSU near Gatwick Airport
Three CCTV camera towers (left) and backup generator (right) protected by anti-ram bollards
Sussex Police Authority's "Criminal Justice Admin Support Unit" near Gatwick Airport
Surrey and Sussex Police TSU near Gatwick Airport
Enjoying a nice packed lunch (right) outside
Sussex Police Authority's "Criminal Justice Admin Support Unit" near Gatwick Airport
Surrey Police TSU Bretlands Road Chertsey
Leafy suburbia in Chertsey, Surrey. But what about those blue gates?
Google Street View
Surrey Police TSU Bretlands Road Chertsey
Surrey Police 1970s Traffic Depot in Bretlands Road, Chertsey
Bing Bird's Eye
Surrey Police TSU Bretlands Road Chertsey
Surrey Police Technical Support Unit (TSU), Bretlands Road, Chertsey
Google Street View
Surrey Police TSU Bretlands Road Chertsey
Former Traffic Division Garages, Bretlands Road, Chertsey
Google Street View

Leicestershire Police's "covert" base is exposed ... due to serious crime

Tigers Road in South Wigston, Leicestershire is a very busy area full of interesting buildings. The whole area around Tigers Road is the former Glen Parva Barracks and at the end of the road, there's the site of the former Borstal, more recently designated His Majesty's Young Offenders Institution (HMYOI) – now flattened and being developed into a brand new prison establishment.

On the north side of the road there's a major Territorial Army Centre, while further down you'll find a Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency test area for motorbikes. South of the road, you'll find global communications company RR Donnelley in the old Glen Parva Barracks military records archive storage depot for the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) and the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) accessed from Saffron Road.

But in front of that, next to the Animal and Plant Health Agency, the former Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) government offices at Tigers Place have been quietly transformed by Leicestershire Constabulary. They now contain numerous specialist and supposedly covert departments involving the National Crime Agency and others. Planning documents at Oadby and Wigston Council reveal a new garage built in 2018 for the modification of – very specifically – Mercedes-Benz Viano vans. They are raised-up on ramps so that "specialist work can be done on the underside of the vehicles".

The problem is that the covert nature of operations at Tigers Place was blown wide open in 2015 when a rogue member of staff – a financial investigator and qualified barrister with a serious gambling addiction – helped himself to the contents of safes full of evidence containing over £150,000 worth of cash, jewellery and gold bars held in connection with four NCA drug trafficking investigations.

An official police report in 2018 on Operation Ultima, Operation Untimely and Operation Pipe reveals not just one, not two, but THREE separate incidents of theft at the same Tigers Place property store in 2015, 2016 and 2017. In that first case in 2015, the financial investigator was jailed. Astonishingly, a further theft from the "safe" storage facility happened in 2016 when £10,000 went missing. In the 2017 case, items that were meant to be disposed of through sale on eBay or destroyed, were instead stolen by yet another corrupt Leicester Police employee.

Leicester Police, Tigers Place, South Wigston
Scene of crimes: Leicestershire Police's "covert" operations base at Tigers Place, South Wigston
Google Street View
NCA Leicester vehicle modification garage, Tigers Place, South Wigston
NCA Leicester vehicle modification garage at Tigers Place, South Wigston
Google Earth
Yet more early SOCA recruitment adverts revealed a new forensic analysis laboratory in Staffordshire. To complement existing labs run by LGC Forensics (formerly the Laboratory of the Government Chemist), the new NCA/SOCA Biometric Lab at Unit 3, Drayton Manor Business Park in Tamworth is now open for business next door to the famous family amusement park of the same name. The Drayton Manor lab is also home to Eurofins Forensics, who in 2019 paid a ransom to criminal cyber attackers.

Other laboratories are located at Darwin House at Birchwood Park, Risley near Warrington, Cheshire and at Building F5 within Culham Science Park near Abingdon, Oxfordshire. LGC have also set up a SOCA/NCA forensic lab at the new National Firearms Centre within the Royal Armouries in Leeds.

Out of all the UK's major Police HQs hosting Hydra sessions, the brand new purpose built Portishead Down HQ of Avon and Somerset Police Force is most probably concealing another SOCA/NCA regional office too.

Up in Manchester, another SOCA/NCA base can be found hiding in the middle of an industrial estate behind the famous Trafford Centre shopping mall. In early 2008, the address databases were helpfully listing "SOCA" at Units 3/4, Unison Business Park on Robson Avenue, Trafford Park. A tall lattice telecoms tower sticking out of the rear compound is also a giveaway.

The 20m high communications mast was erected in 1997, as revealed in a planning application made by an organisation called NWRTSU. One can guess that this name stood for the "North West Regional Technical / Tactical Support Unit" of Greater Manchester Police. However, by 2014 it would seem that NCA had moved out of the Robson Avenue facility, judging by the fact that the telecoms tower had been stripped of all its aerials (study the comparison imagery further below).

In 2008 I discovered a covert operations base for SOCA operating out of new offices built in 2000 on the site of an old haulage truck depot on an industrial estate in a town near Wakefield, West Yorkshire. It had originally been built for the Regional Crime Squad and National Crime Squad – the pre-cursors to SOCA. It is adjacent to a motorway junction with rapid access to both the M1 and M62. I even obtained the architect's plans for the SOCA Wakefield base by serving a Freedom of Information request on the local council.

Fake companies

There is a similar covert operations base for SOCA, now NCA, on an industrial estate in a West Sussex town close to Gatwick Airport. But amazingly, in a mind-boggling lapse of judgement, SOCA flagged-up the location themselves by placing their address on a business directory, yet using a fake Limited Company name made up of letters from their supposedly secret cover codename. Naturally, I checked with Companies House but the name is not currently registered. Furthermore, it had never been used by anyone else before and then dissolved. Sloppy.

Using fake companies isn't something new to the National Crime Agency, but it is hilarious how often it backfires. The NCA's early manifestation SOCA set-up supposedly covert offices and vehicle garages in twin units on Slough's famous Trading Estate, but instead drew attention to themselves by posing as a company called CENSORED Logistics. The problem, for what eventually morphed into NCA Slough, was that CENSORED Logistics did not exist at Companies House. Furthermore, a casual glance at the local council's Excel spreadsheets – fully public – listing business rates on large premises revealed "Serious Organised Crime Agency" as the residents anyway. Doh!

NCA Slough
Hiding in plain sight – National Crime Agency in twin units on the famous Slough Trading Estate
Posing as a completely fake company called CENSORED Logistics
While Metropolitan Police vehicle compounds are obviously used for the storage of recovered stolen cars, they also contain forensic laboratories for SOCA/NCA analysis. The existing facility at the Angerstein Centre on Bramshot Avenue in Charlton, south east London has been joined by a brand new one at the Bilton Centre, off Walmgate Road in Perivale, Middlesex. It has been built on the site of a 1960s Ministry of Labour Government Training Centre.

Think back to the new Airwave secure communications system for the emergency services described in Secret Bases Part 1. In April 2008, SOCA placed another job advert [PDF, 50KB] on their website to recruit an Airwave System Supervisor [PDF, 66KB] based at a new purpose built Regional Control Centre (RCC) "somewhere in the East Midlands".

In previous years, much had already been written about the consolidation of more than 40 national Fire Brigade control centres down into just 9 brand new regional centres. Whilst their use has been described as being merely part of the Fire and Resilience "FiReControl" Project, the SOCA advert hinted at an even more significant role for the nine new buildings. The successful candidate will oversee "the first national covert Airwave communications system".

Ostensibly, each new building location had been chosen on the basis of low risks from flooding and other disasters. They have also been sited at major transport hubs – apparently for the convenience of the staff who will have to relocate or be recruited. What a nice employer.

But consider another more pressing need for all of them (except the Greater London one) to be located right next to motorway junctions and you'll soon get the bigger picture. Perhaps a "multi-agency" network of rapid response teams reacting to "incidents" which threaten the Critical National Infrastructure (CNI).

Incidentally, how apt it is that the London RCC was built on the site of a demolished warehouse next door to the Thames Television studios where ITV's long-running police drama "The Bill" was filmed. In contrast, the Warrington RCC was built on the site of the famous WWII USAF base RAF Burtonwood.

But just like many Government projects, the FiReControl project was beset with problems from the very start and it was cancelled leaving the regional control centres empty and unused. The Fareham centre was eventually utilised by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Warrington, London and Durham RCCs were taken on by various regional emergency authorities. Meanwhile, the remaining five at Wakefield, Cambridge, Wolverhampton, Taunton and Castle Donington were advertised on the commercial market, collectively referred to as Zenith Control Centres. The Wolverhampton Fire Control building was thus transformed into the Midlands Technology Centre housing Oosha (a legal and accountancy IT cloud provider) and Services4Schools (S4S).
Airwave RCC
location maps
Google
Maps
Bing
Maps
Belmont Business Park, Durham
Paragon Business Village, Wakefield, West Yorkshire
Lingley Mere Business Park, Warrington, Cheshire
Willow Farm Business Park, Castle Donington, East Midlands
Wolverhampton Business Park, West Midlands
Cambridge Research Park, Waterbeach, Cambidgeshire
Merton Industrial Estate, London, SW19
Google Street View
Kites Croft Business Park, Fareham, Hampshire
Blackbrook Business Park, Taunton, Somerset
NCA/SOCA, Templefields House, Harlow
Looking south west across the former NCA/SOCA regional office, Templefields House, River Way, Harlow. Now vacated and converted into 172 apartments
NCA/SOCA Templefields House, Harlow
Templefields House when it was SOCA Harlow
Google Street View
Templefields House, Harlow
Templefields House now looks more secure than when it was SOCA
Google Street View
NCA/SOCA Biometric Laboratory, Tamworth
Bird's Eye view looking west across NCA/SOCA Biometric Laboratory, Unit 3, Drayton Manor Business Park, Tamworth, Staffordshire
Bing Bird's Eye
SOCA/NCA, Unison Business Park, Trafford Centre, Manchester
Looking north east across NCA/SOCA regional office at Unison Business Park (top left) behind the Trafford Centre
Aerial photo www.webbaviation.co.uk
Reproduced under licence by kind permission – © Jonathan C. K. Webb
NCA/SOCA, Unison Business Park, Trafford Centre, Manchester
SOCA/NCA regional office at Units 3/4, Unison Business Park, Trafford Centre
Google Maps 3D
NCA/SOCA, Unison Business Park, Trafford Centre, Manchester
Bird's Eye view looking north across NCA/SOCA Trafford Centre, Manchester
Bing Bird's Eye
NCA/SOCA, Unison Business Park, Trafford Centre, Manchester
NCA/SOCA Trafford Centre, Manchester. Comparing the telecoms tower in 2012 (left) and 2014 (right) shows that all the aerials have been removed indicating that the NCA have moved out
Google Street View
NCA Trafford Unison Business Park, Trafford Centre, Manchester
By 2018, the NCA Trafford Centre was seemingly a car distribution depot
Google Street View
Hampshire Police TSU
Hampshire Constabulary's Technical Support Unit near the M27 at Fareham
It looks similar to the former Trafford TSU with its tall lattice comms tower
SOCA/NCA Wakefield
Covert NCA/SOCA operations base somewhere near Wakefield
Airwave RCC Taunton
Bird's Eye view looking west across the Airwave Regional Control Centre (RCC) in Taunton
Bing Bird's Eye
Wolverhampton Airwave RCC
Wolverhampton Airwave RCC
Comparing Google Earth imagery to reveal the new West Midlands Airwave RCC at Wolverhampton Business Park, Junction 2 on the M54
Airwave RCC Durham
Computer generated artist's impression (front view) of the Airwave Regional Control Centre (RCC) in Durham
Imagery: Helios (Belmont) Limited
Airwave RCC Durham
Computer generated artist's impression (rear view) of the Airwave Regional Control Centre (RCC) in Durham
Imagery: Helios (Belmont) Limited

Met Police MO3 Covert Operations
Technical Surveillance Unit (TSU), Clapham, South London

Permalink

The Met's MO3 Covert Ops TSU in Clapham is right next
to a primary school and appears in recruitment brochures

In March 2021, the Met Police was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons in Clapham, South London. A young woman, Sarah Everard, was kidnapped off the streets near Clapham Common, murdered, her remains left in a builders bag in Hoad's Wood alongside the Charing Cross train line and behind a golf driving range and paintballing centre at Great Chart near Ashford, Kent.

The perpetrator Wayne Couzens was a serving Met Police firearms officer within the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection command, tasked with patrolling Parliament and embassy buildings. Before that he had been guarding Dungeness Nuclear Power Station on the Kent coast, as part of the Civil Nuclear Constabulary. On the morning of Sarah's disappearance he had been on duty at the new US Embassy in Nine Elms near Battersea.

When shock and grief turned to anger and groups of women staged vigils and protests, the Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick sent in snatch squads to arrest them for flouting Covid-19 social distancing regulations. The controversial Commissioner held on to her position despite numerous failings which had started with the 2005 killing of innocent Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes when she was Gold Commander on Operation Kratos.

Rather than being sacked, Cressida Dick's career trajectory continued unabated and ten years later in 2015, she was awarded a secondment with MI6 as Director General of Global Counter Terrorism Operations (GCTO). This was precisely when MI6 officers were being investigated for alleged collusion in CIA rendition.

The Met Police was reorganised in 2019 and a whole new list of operational codes for sections appeared. One in particular, MO3, is Met Operations which covers target surveillance using bugs and probes in cars, homes, workplaces and on telephone and internet networks.

This highly sensitive work is at the cutting edge of the fight against Organised Crime Groups (OCG) in conjunction with the National Crime Agency, NCA. It also involves liaising with counter-terrorism command teams within the Met Police, regional counter terrorism units (CTU) all over the UK and of course the Security Service MI5.

It is therefore surprising that the location for the teams and vehicles forming MO3 is publicised so much by the Met themselves. Throughout a major recruitment programme in August 2019, job adverts and brochures appeared detailing MO3's activities and the precise location of its operational base. Even key personnel are named in the documents.

Take a look at the junction of Union Road and Larkhall Lane near Stockwell Tube Station, north of Clapham, SW4. On one corner there's the shell of the not-very-grand old Duke of York pub (latterly the DoY Bar and Grill), on another is a block of flats in Lambeth Council's huge Springfield Estate, while on the other corner is a large unmarked police depot full of vehicles. To the rear and immediately next door on Smedley Street's eastern end is the Larkhall Primary School and Sure Start Children's Centre. A simple sign outside the police depot announces "157 Larkhall Lane" but there's no other signage. The site was previously the 1950s / 1960s era Subarctic House, a food storage warehouse run by S. Frost and Company Limited. The modern day usage is just as chilling.

In an amusing coincidence, the freehold management company, CLS Holdings, responsible for the Subarctic site on which the Met Police MO3 covert base sits, has its own HQ in the newly built office block directly opposite the NCA HQ on Tinworth Street, London.

The main high security entrance to 157 Larkhall Lane is actually around the corner on Union Road and the Royal Mail database suggests it is just a "police station". The Met Police regulation blue paint all around the perimeter ironwork gives the game away. In 2018, the perimeter had extra anti-climb devices fitted on top just for good measure.

The Met acquired the Subarctic House food warehouse site in around 1985 and the first planning application out of the starting blocks was for a detention centre or "forward reception centre" as they worded it. Not surprisingly, Lambeth Council took just three weeks from its receipt to refuse permission.

In fact the local police station in the normal sense of the word was in the 1846 building on the corner of Union Grove and Smedley Street, only slightly north west. It was an old fashioned "Dixon of Dock Green" station complete with blue lamp and a flagpole flying the Union Jack. In 2014 it was converted into 12 luxury apartments known as 51 Union Grove. The flagpole remains but the blue lamp has gone. To add to the confusion, many maps of the area still label the apartments as "Police Station", while the actual not-so-covert Met Police MO3 operations base nearby isn't marked at all.

But the Met seem quite happy to broadcast the location and precise purpose of MO3's depot in its glossy recruitment brochures. How odd.

Met Police MO3 Covert Ops Base 157 Larkhall Lane Clapham
Met Police MO3 Covert Operations Technical Surveillance Unit
157 Larkhall Lane, Clapham, SW4
Google Maps 3D
Met Police MO3 Covert Ops Base 157 Larkhall Lane Clapham
Met Police MO3 Covert Operations Technical Surveillance Unit
and Larkhall Primary School (right)
Bing Bird's Eye
Met Police MO3 Covert Ops Base 157 Larkhall Lane Clapham
Larking about: Met Police Covert Operations at 157 Larkhall Lane, Clapham
Google Street View
Met Police MO3 Covert Ops Base 157 Larkhall Lane Clapham
Met Police MO3 Covert Operations Technical Surveillance Unit
157 Larkhall Lane, Clapham, SW4
Google Street View
Larkhall Primary School and Met Police MO3 Covert Ops Base Clapham
"Keeping Mum": Larkhall Primary School (left) and Met Police MO3 Covert Ops TSU (right) on Smedley Street
Google Street View
Union Grove Police Station, Stockwell
More "Dixon of Dock Green" than "covert operations"
The 1850s Union Grove Police Station, Clapham – now twelve luxury apartments
Google Street View
BCB Dover garage and bodyshop where Wayne Couzens previously worked
Bodyshop: The BCB Dover garage run by Wayne Couzens' father Ray and grandfather Walter and where he had worked for 20 years up to 2011. It was searched by detectives and forensic analysts in March 2021 in connection with Sarah Everard's murder
Google Street View

NABIS – National Ballistics Intelligence Service HQ in Birmingham

Permalink On Bromford Lane in Washwood Heath near Ward End, in the middle of two large recreational areas for dog walkers, sports pitches and a children's play park, you'll find a 1970s era Police Station which was built on the site of a 1950s brick works and refuse tip. Nowadays the police building is known as Ridgepoint House – West Midlands Police's forensics examination laboratories to the north east of Birmingham's city centre. Incidentally, you can't fail to notice the vehicle speed trap camera calibration markers on the road out front. Or perhaps you will – that's the point.

Ridgepoint House hit the headlines in 2019 when WMP advertised for unpaid volunteers to sift through disturbing, distressing, indecent video and photographic evidence. One former forensic analyst said Ridgepoint House was nicknamed "No Point House" – "the whole place is just horrible. There is no support, managers don't follow up if you're having problems, there is a lot of depression". Forensic experts described the situation as "a disaster waiting to happen".

In 2007, extensive roof plant machinery was installed on the main police building. A new building was added on the site of a demolished one, tucked away at the rear of Ridgepoint House behind old vehicle garages. As the fully public planning application number N/05874/06/FUL reveals, it became the HQ of NABIS – the National Ballistics Intelligence Service, where firearms evidence is analysed and key research is performed to track and trace weapons used in serious crimes. The firearms analysis laboratory and 25m weapons shooting range adjoins the back gardens of houses on Fairholme Road. It includes weapons fingerprinting and DNA analysis rooms and an Integrated Ballistics Identification System (IBIS) server room.

In February 2021, Ridgepoint House was featured regularly in the BBC series Forensics: The Real CSI. The production team even repeatedly flew drones over the top for camera shots. However, it was captioned on screen as just "Forensic Department, Birmingham".

WMP Ridgepoint House NABIS HQ
West Midlands Police, Ridgepoint House on BBC's Forensics: The Real CSI
© BBC
WMP Ridgepoint House NABIS HQ
West Midlands Police, Ridgepoint House on BBC's Forensics: The Real CSI
© BBC
WMP Ridgepoint House NABIS HQ
West Midlands Police, Ridgepoint House, Bromford Lane, Washwood Heath near Ward End, Birmingham
Note the speed trap camera calibration markers too
Google Street View
WMP Ridgepoint House NABIS HQ
Washwood Heath parkland ... and NABIS HQ
Bing Bird's Eye
WMP Ridgepoint House NABIS HQ
West Midlands Police, Ridgepoint House, Washwood Heath, Birmingham
major building works in progress 2007
Bing Bird's Eye
WMP Ridgepoint House NABIS HQ
West Midlands Police, Ridgepoint House in 2007
Bing Bird's Eye
WMP Ridgepoint House NABIS HQ
West Midlands Police NABIS HQ in 2008
National Ballistics Intelligence Service
Google Earth
WMP Ridgepoint House NABIS HQ
NABIS NIMBY: backyard ballistics on Fairholme Road, Washwood Heath
Bing Bird's Eye
WMP Ridgepoint House NABIS HQ
West Midlands Police NABIS HQ in 2019
Google Maps 3D

MPSTC Gravesend

Permalink

★ Merseyside Police Operational Command Centre
incorporating Matrix teams and Borders Terrorism Assessment Centre (BTAC)

★ "UK Stealth Plod": Metropolitan Police's hidden operational vehicle compound

★ West Midlands Police's Indoor Weapons Range

★ Avon and Somerset Police's "Black Project"

★ West Midlands Police Tally Ho! Command and Control Bunker

★ "Paragon" – Met Police Covert Vehicle Unit

★ "VRES Belvedere" – Vehicle Recovery and Examination Service

★ Belvedere Storage Facility

★ Government Car Service (GCS) Bermondsey

★ Metropolitan Police's Special Escort Group (SEG)

★ Northumbria Police's Operational and Tactical Training Centre (OTTC)

★ West Yorkshire Police's Carr Gate Complex

★ Lancashire Constabulary's Special Operations Centre in Blackburn

Take a look at an interesting secure depot on the east side of Gravesend in Kent on the Thames Estuary. Scrutinise the land next to the National Sea Training College campus and the Port of London Authority's old Quarantine Station and you'll find the new Metropolitan Police Specialist Training Centre (MPSTC). The depot is fully labelled on 1:10000 maps. In June 2007, it finally made it onto Google Earth at hi-res in a major UK imagery update.

The £55m MPSTC was built by Equion (part of the John Laing group) in a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deal. It was officially opened in April 2003 and provides the capital's officers with firearms and public order training by tutors from The Met's CO12 branch.

Brave students in riot gear are taught how to deal with petrol bombs being thrown at them. Weapons training is provided on indoor laser ranges and outdoors on the Army's old Milton Range further east. The MPSTC includes a mock-up of a mini town including a bank, shops, night club and even a football stadium. Also featured are train and underground stations with full size carriages and a section from a passenger jet – utilised to great effect by specialist firearms officers from Scotland Yard's elite CO19 (formerly SO19) branch.

In early 2009, the Gravesend facility played a crucial role in the Met's training to deal with the possibility of rioting protestors at the G20 Summit of world political leaders, as part of the massive police and counter-terrorism security plan codenamed Operation Glencoe.

The previous facility, which the Gravesend base replaces, was at the north east corner of Hounslow Heath near Heathrow Airport. This could be seen at hi-res on Google Earth until Autumn 2006 and showed the scorched mock-up streets and many of the features now incorporated into the new Gravesend facility. The latest Google Earth imagery for London shows that the whole MPSTC Hounslow Heath facility has now been bulldozed and replaced with a new housing estate.

Meanwhile, down in South East London, tucked into the residential suburbs between Sydenham and Penge East train stations, you'll find the Metropolitan Police's Operational Technical / Technology Support Unit (OTSU) at Newlands Park (pictured further below in a Bird's Eye aerial view), based in an old factory.

In December 2005, Thames Valley Police officially opened a new £5 million indoor firearms training range within the grounds of its Sulhamstead House training centre near Reading in Berkshire. It was built on the site of some older mock houses that had been used for various tactical training scenarios. Study the aerial imagery further below showing the before, during and after phases of the construction project.

Up at the other end of the country, another brand new Tactical Firearms Training Centre has been built for joint use by Cleveland and Durham Police Authorities. It can be found at Urlay Nook in Eaglescliffe, at the old rail hub entrance to a former Royal Naval Supply Depot, opposite a huge chemical plant and also near Teesside International (now Durham Tees Valley) Airport.

Up in Scotland, not to be outdone, Strathclyde Police have opened a brand new training base at Jackton, East Kilbride on the outskirts of Glasgow. It comes complete with weapons ranges, driver training and public order mock-up facilities.

Merseyside Police Operational Command Centre
incorporating Matrix teams and Borders Terrorism Assessment Centre (BTAC)

Fresh Google Earth imagery from Summer 2018 (featured further below) reveals Merseyside Police's new Operational Command Centre at Leeward Drive, off Speke Hall Avenue, on Estuary Banks Business Park in Speke near John Lennon International Airport.

The building contains the region's Matrix Serious and Organised Crime (MSOC) teams but also the Borders Terrorism Assessment Centre (BTAC) – previously known as the National Ports Analysis Centre (NPAC).

Liverpool's BTAC liaises with Manchester's well-established National Border Targeting Centre (NBTC) next to Manchester International Airport.

Liverpool Matrix and Borders Terrorism Assessment Centre (BTAC)
Looking east: Lloyds Bank (left, north) and Merseyside Police Operational Command Centre (right, south) at Leeward Drive, Estuary Banks Business Park, Speke
Google Maps
Liverpool Matrix and Borders Terrorism Assessment Centre (BTAC)
Lloyds Bank (left, north) and Merseyside Police Operational Command Centre building site (right, south) at Leeward Drive, Estuary Banks Business Park, Speke
Bing Maps
Liverpool Matrix and Borders Terrorism Assessment Centre (BTAC)
Lloyds Bank (left, north) and Liverpool Matrix / Borders Terrorism Assessment Centre (BTAC), formerly National Ports Analysis Centre (NPAC), at Merseyside Police Operational Command Centre (right, south), Leeward Drive, Estuary Banks Business Park, Speke
Google Earth: Summer 2018 imagery

Metropolitan Police's hidden operational vehicle compound

In Barking, Essex, alongside the A406 North Circular Road, on the banks of the River Roding, you'll find the well known Hertford House site operated by the Metropolitan Police. The site at the end of Hertford Road on the Roding Trading Estate was significantly expanded in 2001, consolidating several other sites dealing with North East London crime, based in Edmonton, Ilford, Stratford, Stepney, Leyton and Chadwell Heath.

At the time, the Met Police applied to the local council to establish an operational vehicle compound to store 100 cars. But you can't see them on aerial photos. Are they underground? Well, sort of. They are actually stored in a heavily fortified section underneath the A406 flyover. On the northern side of the train line passing under the road flyover, the other sections underneath the elevated A406 – a former mushroom farm – are commercial storage facilities used by a fruit and vegetable wholesaler.

Next time you're driving past the huge gas holder on the elevated section of the North Circular at Barking, think about all those covert police vehicles beneath you. If you look really closely at the Bing Bird's Eye, you can just spot some of them if you rotate the view to East-West.

Meanwhile, the empty warehouse acquired for use as the Metropolitan Police Patrol Base at the Falcon Business Centre on the Harold Hill Industrial Estate in Romford seems to have been spotted very early in the development process by local graffiti artists (see pictures below).

Also pictured further below is a comparison of 2008 and 2016 Google Street View imagery at the junction of Station Road and Bath Road, next to the new Tesco supermarket at the Bishop's Centre retail development in Taplow, Berkshire. Since at least the early 1970s, police garages have been tucked behind the Old Drill Hall in cramped 1940s vintage outbuildings. Since 2012, the location has been transformed in style. The Drill Hall – a famous landmark on the road junction – has now been demolished and in its place stands a 21st Century building secured with the latest keypad entry security gates.

Metropolitan Police, Hertford House, Barking, Essex
Metropolitan Police's Hertford House, Hertford Road, Barking, Essex
Google Street View
Metropolitan Police, Hertford House, Barking, Essex
Metropolitan Police's Hertford House, Hertford Road, Barking, Essex alongside the A406 North Circular Road
Bing Bird's Eye
Metropolitan Police, Hertford House, Barking, Essex
Metropolitan Police's hidden vehicle compound underneath the A406 North Circular Road flyover
Bing Bird's Eye
Metropolitan Police, Hertford House, Barking, Essex
Metropolitan Police's hidden vehicle compound underneath the A406 North Circular Road flyover
Bing Bird's Eye
Metropolitan Police Patrol Base, Romford, Essex
Metropolitan Police's Patrol Base on Spilsby Road, Romford, Essex
Google Street View
Metropolitan Police Patrol Base, Romford, Essex
Metropolitan Police's Patrol Base on Spilsby Road, Romford, Essex. "Ghost Building" – the local graffiti artists seemed to have guessed early on
Google Street View
Thames Valley Police Patrol Base, Taplow, Berkshire
Thames Valley Police's Patrol Base at The Old Drill Hall, Station Road / Bath Road, Taplow, Berkshire. The 1930s garages (left) behind the Drill Hall (right) have been transformed ...
Google Street View
Thames Valley Police Patrol Base, Taplow, Berkshire
Thames Valley Police's new hi-tech Patrol Base at Taplow. A motorcycle cop enters his code into the gate's security keypad
Google Street View

Paragon – Met Police Covert Vehicle Unit

VRES Belvedere – Vehicle Recovery and Examination Services

Belvedere Storage Facility

VRES Paragon unit at Belvedere
VRES Belvedere and Paragon unit
Similarly the former Nufarm agrochemicals factory site at Crabtree Manorway North in Belvedere, on the Erith Marshes in Kent has been acquired. During 2018, the cleared Nufarm land – immediately north of the new Amazon logistics warehouse DBR1, next to the East Thames Bus Garage at Burts Wharf and opposite Lidl's distribution centre – was in the process of being turned into VRES Belvedere – a new Vehicle Recovery and Examination Services base for impounded cars seized by police.

The public plans at Bexley Council – submitted through the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) – revealed that a warehouse was also earmarked on site for refrigerated forensics storage of evidence. Compare imagery further below showing the old Nufarm factory, then the cleared site, the new Amazon warehouse and the remaining site ready for VRES Belvedere.

Google Street View imagery from Summer 2019 shows the VRES Belvedere main buildings taking shape. The only hint outside is a sign (in regulation Met Police blue) reading "Belvedere Storage Facility". On the same sign, directions are given for a facility within the same site named "Paragon" which provides a Mobile Maintenance Unit (MMU) to specialist police assets such as ARVs (Armed Response Vehicles), covert vehicles and indeed all the MO11 Fleet Services of the MPS.

Internal planning drawings reveal that the separate Paragon warehouse contains workshop bays and a Celette Griffon 2800 drive-on vehicle lift and body straightening workstation.

The new Met Police vehicle facility at Erith has been purpose-built to replace the old Angerstein Centre at Bramshot Avenue, Charlton, London, SE7, mentioned earlier in this page. The Charlton depot had been deemed unfit for purpose and leaseholder arrangements were proving difficult to negotiate.

Metropolitan Police VRES Belvedere
Coming soon. Metropolitan Police's VRES Belvedere, Vehicle Recovery and Examination Services, Crabtree Manorway, Erith Marshes
Former Nufarm agrochemicals factory (left), the cleared site (middle) and new Amazon warehouse (right)
© Google Earth
Metropolitan Police VRES Belvedere
Coming soon. Metropolitan Police's VRES Belvedere, Vehicle Recovery and Examination Services, Crabtree Manorway, Erith Marshes
Former Nufarm agrochemicals factory now cleared (left)
East Thames Bus Garage (right)
Lidl Distribution Centre (bottom)
View Bing Bird's Eye
Metropolitan Police VRES Belvedere and Paragon unit
Metropolitan Police's VRES Belvedere and Paragon unit taking shape in Summer 2019
Google Street View
Metropolitan Police VRES Belvedere and Paragon unit
Metropolitan Police's VRES Belvedere and Paragon unit in Summer 2021
Google Street View
Metropolitan Police VRES Belvedere and Paragon unit
Met Police VRES Belvedere rear view
Vehicle ramp into warehouse
Google Maps 3D
Metropolitan Police VRES Belvedere and Paragon covert vehicle unit
Met Police Belvedere Storage Facility,
VRES Belvedere and Paragon Covert Vehicle Unit
Google Maps 3D

Avon and Somerset Police's "Black Project"

Down in the West Country, you can find the Black Rock Specialist Firearms Training Facility comprising state-of-the-art weapons ranges, just a few hundred yards down the road from Avon and Somerset Police's HQ on Valley Road in Portishead. It has been built by GallifordTry within the disused Black Rock Quarry near Weston-in-Gordano and serves Wiltshire and Gloucestershire police forces as well as Avon / Somerset.

The project had to work around the nesting times of resident peregrine falcons and the facility's roof has been planted so that it will eventually blend into the surroundings.

While still under construction, the building was targeted by arsonists, calling themselves Angry Foxes Cell, which resulted in a major fire causing the roof to collapse. So a "Blackened Project" rather than a "Black Project". Google Street imagery shows the transformation of the quarry into the firearms unit.

Meanwhile, in 2014, Avon and Somerset Police also acquired an empty office block on a famous technology park. It had been occupied for a while by Logica CMG but was left empty for many years. Avon and Somerset Police totally remodelled it so that it provided a major technical operations centre including internal vehicle workshops. The distinctive floor-to-roof glazing was removed and replaced with metal cladding and windows. It is also thought to be now occupied by specialist teams of the National Crime Agency NCA. A planning application for a 30m high microwave tower reveals that it needs to have line-of-sight connection to Avon and Somerset's Police HQ in Portishead.

Yet another Avon and Somerset Police operations centre was set up in 2010 in an empty unit on Harlequin Office Park alongside the M4 south east of the M32 interchange. This was to allow relocation of staff from the old Broad Street, Staple Hill Police Station – since demolished and developed into flats. Unit 3 on Fieldfare, off Folly Brook Road, at the Wick Wick Roundabout near Emersons Green, has a secure vehicle compound next to the M4 and a separate secure storage building behind the main offices, which can accommodate one vehicle being worked on. The police site is also equipped with a backup diesel generator.

Black Rock Weapons Range, Portishead, Bristol
Black Rock Quarry at Portishead, Bristol disused in 2011
Google Street View
Black Rock Weapons Range, Portishead, Bristol
Black Rock Weapons Range at Valley Road, Portishead in 2015
Google Street View
Avon and Somerset Police operations centre and vehicle workshops
Avon and Somerset Police Authority acquired these old Logica CMG offices on a famous technology park near Bristol (pictured Summer 2015)
Avon and Somerset Police operations centre and vehicle workshops
Avon and Somerset Police operations centre and vehicle workshops being remodelled in 2016
Avon and Somerset Police operations centre and vehicle workshops
Avon and Somerset Police operations centre and vehicle workshops in 2018
Avon and Somerset Police operations centre Harlequin Office Park
Avon and Somerset Police operations centre
Unit 3, Harlequin Office Park, Fieldfare, Folly Brook Road, Emersons Green
Google Maps 3D

West Midlands Police Tally Ho! Command and Control Bunker

Consider the Tally Ho! Police Training College on Pershore Road in Edgbaston, next to Warwickshire County Cricket Ground. A new Gold and Silver Command and Control Room has been built in a bunker-style building on the sports grounds adjoining the main training centre facilities.

Aerial photography reveals the structure being built from September 2009 through early 2010 and earth bunding has been built up in front of it to protect it from hostile vehicle attack from the main road.

The £1.65 million project was commissioned in readiness for the September 2010 State Visit by The Pope and the Conservative Party Conference in early October 2010. Curiously the planning application at Birmingham City Council describes it as a "Learning Resource Centre", but consultants Interclass gave the game away in their very detailed project brochure. Additionally, Lux Lighting detailed interior photographs of the operations rooms in their own publicity document.

Presumably, both scenarios are valid: the ultimate use of the facility was as a learning centre but it was initially used by operational Gold and Silver Commanders for those major events of 2010. On completion, newspaper articles in Summer 2010 announced it as the Events Control Suite (ECS) where, for example, live CCTV images are streamed from across Birmingham and crowds at football matches are monitored. In any case, the architect's internal plans show 60 workstation desk positions, conference rooms, offices, plus computer server and plant machinery rooms.

But by 2019, the Tally Ho ECS was already being described in official WMP reports as "outdated and not fit for future policing needs". Yet another ECS was constructed at WMP's Park Lane Firearms Unit in Aston (featured further below), due to open in late 2020 in plenty of time for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Tally Ho! Command and Control Bunker, Pershore Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham
West Midlands Police's Tally Ho! Training Centre, Pershore Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham
Aerial photo: Google Earth
Tally Ho! Command and Control Bunker, Pershore Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham
West Midlands Police's Tally Ho! Command and Control Bunker, Pershore Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham
Aerial photo: Google Earth
Tally Ho! Command and Control Bunker, Pershore Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham
West Midlands Police's Tally Ho! Command Bunker: Events Control Suite (ECS)
Aerial photo: Google Maps 3D
Tally Ho! Command and Control Bunker, Pershore Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham
West Midlands Police's Tally Ho! Command and Control Bunker and protective earth bunding under construction in November 2009
Google Street View
Tally Ho! Command and Control Bunker, Pershore Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham
West Midlands Police's Tally Ho! Command and Control Bunker, Pershore Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham
Google Street View
Tally Ho! Command and Control Bunker, Pershore Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham
West Midlands Police's Tally Ho! Command and Control Bunker, centre of picture in the distance, from the training college car park
Google Street View
Tally Ho! Command and Control Bunker, Pershore Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham
West Midlands Police's Tally Ho! Events Control Suite (ECS) operations room
© Lux Lighting

West Midlands Police's Indoor Weapons Range

Still in the West Midlands and still in Birmingham, consider a well established West Midlands Police (WMP) Traffic Division and Firearms Centre at Aston, alongside the A38(M) urban motorway known as the Aston Expressway.

Opposite the Albion at Aston pub, a space-age building has been constructed on what was previously spare land owned by WMP, but just used as a car park. Even though very modern looking, the new facility was built in 2008 and actually comprises two separate buildings either side of the A38(M) slip road.

On the south side is the offices, laboratories, workshops and training rooms plus an indoor 50m weapons firing range. On the north side of the slip road, a much smaller building clad in the same external facade is a specialist Method of Entry (MOE) training unit.

During 2019, part of the Park Lane site, next to the firearms training range and MOE unit, was demolished to make way for a replacement for the Tally Ho Events Control Suite (ECS) featured in the previous section above – in readiness for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

The Aston firearms range drew some criticism in June 2017 when Year 3 primary school children were invited to the facility and pictured with toy guns. Some parents nearly went ballistic. Study the aerial photos and Street Views further below.

West Midlands Police Weapons Firing Range, Park Lane, Aston, Birmingham
West Midlands Police's Weapons Firing Range at Aston, Birmingham
© Google Earth
West Midlands Police Weapons Firing Range, Park Lane, Aston, Birmingham
West Midlands Police's Weapons Firing Range at Aston, Birmingham
Google Street View
West Midlands Police ECS, Park Lane, Aston, Birmingham
Building site for West Midlands Police's Events Control Suite (ECS) at Park Lane, Aston, Birmingham
Firearms Training Range and MOE Unit (left), ECS site (centre), WMP Park Lane (top right)
Aston Expressway A38(M) in the background
Google Maps 3D
West Midlands Police, Park Lane, Aston, Birmingham
WMP Park Lane, Aston, Birmingham
Main entrance (foreground)
Firearms Training Range (distance), ECS site (middle), Aston Expressway A38(M) (right)
Google Maps 3D
West Midlands Police Method of Entry (MOE) Unit and Events Control Suite (ECS), Park Lane, Aston, Birmingham
WMP Park Lane, Aston
Method of Entry MOE Unit (left) and site for Events Control Suite ECS (right)
Google Street View

Lancashire Constabulary's Special Operations Centre in Blackburn

Considering they are in the grim north like me, Lancashire Constabulary managed to scrape together the finances for a spanking new special operations facility way back almost ten years ago. It is at a discrete (and discreet) location at the far south east corner of the vast Shadsworth Business Park in Blackburn with a strategic link to the M65 motorway.

Take a wander around Hurstwood Court on Mercer Way (pictured further below). On Google Street View imagery dated 2009, behind the high-security gate you can clearly see fully liveried police patrol vehicles, a mobile Incident Unit trailer and riot control vans parked outside units 1 to 5, all five of which are under police occupation. The neighbouring Units 6 to 11 are commercial premises.

How odd that the 1,650 square metres building containing units 1 to 5 didn't get a mention on the local police and crime commissioner's asset register in 2015, even though the planning application to fit-out the units was granted in Summer 2006. It was fully listed as "Lancashire Constabulary" on Royal Mail's public address database.

However, in 2016 a new planning application was made by a commercial company called Heatmiser to convert all five units back to industrial and office use. Heatmiser is currently based next door in Units 8 and 9. It seems the police have moved out!

Lancashire Constabulary's Special Operations Facility, Hurstwood Court, Mercer Way, Shadsworth Business Park, Blackburn
Lancashire Constabulary's (former) Special Operations Facility, Hurstwood Court, Mercer Way, Shadsworth Business Park, Blackburn (Police moved out in 2016, now occupied by Heatmiser UK Limited)
Google Street View

Government Car Service – GCS Bermondsey

In this section on vehicle depots, consider the Monopoly board location: Old Kent Road. Have a look around the back of the new flats known as the Chevron Apartments on St. James's Road (pictured further below). The very secure gate adjoining the apartments (formerly Southwark College's Universal House campus) isn't for use by the residents. Rather, it leads around the rear of the block to numerous garages next to Six Bridges Trading Estate, which since 2014 have been home to the Government Car Service (GCS), which evolved out of the former Government Car and Despatch Agency (GCDA).

The GCDA had a major depot next to the Metropolitan Police Garages in Ponton Road, Nine Elms, where the new US Embassy is under construction. The GCS provides Government ministers with specially prepared pool vehicles for official business. Read all about the history of the GCS in a 250 page book [PDF, 2MB].

Helpfully, the GCS garages at St. James's Road are fully listed on Royal Mail's address database as both "Government Car Service" and "Department for Transport". The buildings forming the GCS garages at 306 St. James's Road, Bermondsey have in the past provided space for a theatrical scenery company, and even the Wall of Praise Christian Centre – until the local council pointed out this was a breach of planning regulations.

The GCS moved in during the summer of 2014, assisted by construction specialists Kier and Bouygues UK, and installed special vehicle wash bays and a beefed-up sliding security gate and guardhouse. It is even listed on official Government databases as an MoT testing station, but don't even think about it! For the time being, the GCS depot at Bermondsey is leased by the Department for Transport until 2024, but the area is ripe for redevelopment.

Government Car Service (GCS) Bermondsey
Government Car Service (GCS) garages at 306, St. James's Road, Bermondsey. High security gate and guardhouse (left) and Chevron Apartments (right)
Google Street View
Government Car Service (GCS) Bermondsey
Government Car Service (GCS) Bermondsey. Construction work by Kier and Bouygues UK during Summer 2014
Google Street View
Government Car Service (GCS) Bermondsey
Government Car Service (GCS) Bermondsey. A car emerges from the GCS garages in May 2016
Google Street View

Metropolitan Police's Special Escort Group (SEG)

Still in Bermondsey but right in the middle of ever-encroaching property development, take a look along the north end of Maltby Street next to the Rope Walk railway arches and Maltby Street Market. Rather incongruously, in amongst trendy coffee bars, antique architectural salvage experts and brand new exclusive apartments, a bleak utilitarian 1960s office block and industrial building stubbornly refuses to budge in the face of hipster onslaught.

The Royal Mail database assists us again with the precise description: Metropolitan Police Special Escort Group (SEG). This very old Met Police garage (pictured further below) appears fully labelled on a 1:1,250 scale 1975 Ordnance Survey map, but the modern day function is a base and workshop for the armed motorcycle outriders who protect Government ministers, Royal Family members and foreign VIPs when travelling around London by official car.

The Special Escort Group garages are on the site of Victorian terraced houses which backed on to a large tannery and this is reflected in the nearby Tanner Street. How much longer before the property moguls take over though?

Metropolitan Police Special Escort Group (SEG)
Metropolitan Police's Special Escort Group (SEG) garages at Maltby Street, Bermondsey
Google Street View

Northumbria Police's Operational and Tactical Training Centre (OTTC) Follingsby Park

Up in the Northumbria Police region at Wardley near Gateshead, alongside the A194(M) motorway, you will find the Follingsby Park Operational and Tactical Training Centre (OTTC) which provides similar facilities to the Gravesend MPSTC.

The OTTC was opened in 2013 and the official brochure [PDF, 1.6MB] reveals that the OTTC includes two 60m firearms simulators, plus an urban street scenario in a Tactical Training Area (TTA) to practise Taser deployment and building entry methods.

The OTTC (pictured further below) has been hired out to the National Crime Agency, Civil Nuclear Constabulary, South Yorkshire Police and even the Royal Marines.

Northumbria Police Operational and Tactical Training Centre (OTTC) Follingsby Park
Northumbria Police's Operational and Tactical Training Centre (OTTC), Follingsby Park, Wardley, Gateshead (under construction in 2012)
Google Street View
Northumbria Police Operational and Tactical Training Centre (OTTC) Follingsby Park
Northumbria Police's Operational and Tactical Training Centre (OTTC), Follingsby Park, Wardley, Gateshead
Google Street View
Northumbria Police Operational and Tactical Training Centre (OTTC) Follingsby Park
Northumbria Police's Operational and Tactical Training Centre (OTTC) Follingsby Park. Urban street scenario Tactical Training Area (TTA) (left) and firearms simulators (right)
Imagery: Google Earth
Northumbria Police Operational and Tactical Training Centre (OTTC) Follingsby Park
Northumbria Police's urban street scenario Tactical Training Area (TTA) at Follingsby Park OTTC
Google Maps 3D

West Yorkshire Police's Carr Gate Complex

In 2014, West Yorkshire Police opened their own specialist firearms training facility at their existing Carr Gate Complex alongside the M1 motorway north of Wakefield. Compare the "before" and "after" pictures further below to show the massive expansion programme, including a vehicle manoeuvring training area and an indoor public order training centre.

West Yorkshire Police Carr Gate Complex firearms training centre Wakefield
West Yorkshire Police's Carr Gate Complex north of Wakefield
(before 2014)
Imagery: Google Maps 3D
West Yorkshire Police Carr Gate Complex firearms training centre Wakefield
West Yorkshire Police's Carr Gate Complex since 2014: vehicle manoeuvring area (far left), indoor public order training centre (top left) and firearms training ranges (lower right)
Imagery: Google Maps
MPSTC Gravesend
Bird's Eye view looking north over MPSTC Gravesend showing mock-up sports stadium and city street scenes for crowd control (top left) plus train station (top, right of centre) and airliner fuselage (top right) for CO19 use
Bing Bird's Eye
MPSTC Gravesend riot training
MPSTC Gravesend riot control training on the mock streets
Copyright © BBC
The Met: Policing London
Thames Valley Police, Sulhamstead indoor firearms training range
Bird's Eye view looking south over Thames Valley Police Sulhamstead Training HQ, Reading, Berkshire showing the new indoor firearms training range (right)
Bing Bird's Eye
Thames Valley Police, Sulhamstead indoor firearms training range
Bird's Eye view looking south over Thames Valley Police indoor firearms training range at Sulhamstead HQ
Bing Bird's Eye
Thames Valley Police Sulhamstead Firearms Range
Thames Valley Police Sulhamstead Firearms Range
Thames Valley Police Sulhamstead Firearms Range
Google Earth imagery (2003 / 2004 / 2018, top to bottom) of "before", "during" and "after" construction phases at Thames Valley Police's new £5 million Sulhamstead HQ indoor firearms training range (top left)
Plus the new Officer Fitness and Personal Safety Unit (bottom right) and Method of Entry (MOE) training houses (middle left)
Google Earth
Former MPSTC Hounslow Heath
Former MPSTC Hounslow Heath, London
Metropolitan Police's Operational Technical / Technology Support Unit (OTSU) Newlands Park
Bird's Eye view of Metropolitan Police's Operational Technical / Technology Support Unit (OTSU) at Newlands Park, Penge, South East London
Bing Bird's Eye
Metropolitan Police's Operational Technical / Technology Support Unit (OTSU) Newlands Park
Communications vehicles with roof-mounted microwave dishes at OTSU Newlands Park
Google Street View

Mystery bunker – case solved

Permalink Do you live near Macclesfield, Cheshire? Did you know there's a secret structure (below) built into the side of Billinge Hill at Rainow? It's hidden inside the south eastern part of the disused Billinge Quarries on Blaze Hill. All the other parts of the old quarry workings have been filled in and are now overgrown with vegetation. But this location has a gated access road, a recently well-used hardstanding area and what seems to be a blast door entrance to a bunker with four ventilation shafts on top.

Astonishingly, the gate is just a standard one you'd find on a farm track and the security is low key to say the least. But the sign warns that 24 hour emergency access is required and that trespass is prohibited under the Explosives Act. Why would explosives be stored at a disused quarry? They wouldn't be stored there when it was active – a remote store would be used. Why is there no permanent guarding?

I had heard persistent rumours that whenever there is an incident threatening national security, the local police are sent up to this site to guard it for the duration of the state of high alert. There has been so much speculation regarding its purpose, from avid readers of Secret Bases, that I decided to settle the matter by performing a Freedom of Information Act request to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Within just a matter of days, they very kindly responded with the full details.

After all the excitement, disappointingly there's no mysterious MoD bunker concealing covert military operations. However, my FOI request to HSE revealed the owner of the site as a very interesting local business, using it since 1978.

It turns out to be Edgar Brothers located on Macclesfield's Lyme Green Business Park in Unit 3 on Heather Close. Originally founded in 1947, they are one of the UK's oldest, well-established importers and wholesale dealers in firearms, ammunition and associated products. As well as the obvious sporting and leisure clients, through their Police and Military Division (PMD) they are official suppliers of guns, knives, high power torches, weapon lights, clothing and footwear to all UK Police Forces and MoD. A major US Government and DoD supplier Blackhawk is pushed too.

Small wonder that earlier in 2008, the then Chief Constable of Cheshire Police (Peter Fahy – later moved to Greater Manchester Police) declined to respond to my repeated formal requests for comments on security at the site. With the UK's gun and knife crime epidemic, one can only hope that things have now improved substantially. But then again, remember that not all surveillance is obvious nowadays.

By June 2016, some new Google Street View imagery (also below) revealed that the red warning sign had been removed from the gate. In April 2017, the Managing Director of Edgar Brothers told me that they were still the owners and the magazine was still in use, but the sign had been removed "at the request of Cheshire Police for security reasons".

Blaze Hill gate sign
Warning sign on the gate at Blaze Hill, Rainow in 2008
Blaze Hill gate sign in 2016
Warning sign on the gate at Blaze Hill, Rainow had been removed by June 2016 at the request of Cheshire Police "for security reasons"
Google Street View

Perdix Firearms – film and television armourers in Cold War Bunker

Permalink

Stoke Poges and RAF Shipton

Following on from the Blaze Hill bunker (detailed in the section above), another firearms facility can be found in the village of Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire. Given that the location is just a short drive from Pinewood Film Studios, this should give a clue to its purpose.

On Grays Park Road there's a substantial gate that is deliberately censored on Google Street View. There's a sign outside announcing "Stoke Poges Range", often known as SPR. Indeed just beyond the security perimeter, you'll find a 50m indoor weapons firing range. But instead of Police and military officers, you would likely meet the film and television industry armourers Rob Partridge and Amanda Anstee, who together run Perdix Firearms.

The company is a Prohibited Weapons and Ammunition (Section 5) Firearms Licence holder, accredited by the UK Government's Home Office, certified to provide firearms to TV and film productions. Rob and Amanda have provided armourer services to James Bond movie Skyfall, Sky TV's Gangs of London, HBO's His Dark Materials and numerous other TV dramas and documentaries. Stoke Poges Range was constructed inside a disused Thames Water covered reservoir and so from the air it looks just like an underground military bunker.

Two other companies are also run from the Stoke Poges Range site: Select Resources Limited and Ardette Limited. Land Registry documents reveal that back in February 1997, previous incarnations of those two companies acquired the former ROTOR radar bunker and Regional Seat of Government (RSG, later RGHQ – Regional Government Headquarters) at RAF Shipton alongside the A19 north of Shipton by Beningbrough, York.

For many years urban explorers have been puzzled how, knowing that the MoD sold off the ROTOR and RSG / RGHQ network in the 1990s, the security at RAF Shipton is still so substantial and highly visible to the present day. The new owners even kept the old MoD "HMX Crown Property" gatehouse sign to throw people off the scent.

While the tall microwave tower and associated plant above ground is used by mobile phone telecoms companies, the bunker itself is another matter. Given the connection between the three companies based at Stoke Poges Range and the owner of RAF Shipton since 1997, we can hazard a guess at precisely why visitors are not welcome at the old Cold War ROTOR and RSG site.

It would seem that RAF Shipton's old hardened bunker is storing weapons and associated equipment that is hired out by Perdix Firearms Limited to films and TV series. Rob Partridge also sells high precision CAM marksman rifles from the company BMS Trading Limited through fellow armourer Paul Green's Thames Valley Guns.

Further investigations reveal that Perdix previously operated from a location at High Post, Salisbury, Wiltshire, where the military pyrotechnics suppliers Chemring Countermeasures are based – featured in Secret Bases Part 1.

As for the name Perdix, it is the scientific name for the partridge derived from Ancient Greek. Rob Partridge – Perdix Firearms.

Stoke Poges Weapons Firing Range
Stoke Poges Range near Pinewood Film Studios, Buckinghamshire
50m Weapons Firing Range in an old disused covered reservoir
Bing Bird's Eye
Stoke Poges Weapons Firing Range
Stoke Poges Range entrance censored on Google Street View
Google Street View
Stoke Poges Weapons Firing Range
Stoke Poges Range entrance restored on Google Street View using alternate angle
Google Street View
RAF Shipton RSG RGHQ ROTOR bunker
RAF Shipton RSG / RGHQ ROTOR bunker
Storage facility for Perdix Firearms film and TV suppliers
Google Maps

Thor missile launch sites

Permalink Have a look at the area just to the south of the village of Feltwell in Norfolk, near to the town of Thetford and the major USAF airbases at Mildenhall and Lakenheath. The site at Feltwell is an old airfield that even pre-dates WWII. The Feltwell Golf Course was built on top of one part of the old aerodrome and its evocative address is "Thor Avenue", which runs north-east / south-west through the Golf Club from Wilton Road. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the golf course area was the site of the Thor missile launch base.

Amazingly, until the data was eventually revised in March 2006, Ordnance Survey's 1:25000 scale map of the golf course still showed the positions of the Thor launch pads even though no trace of them can be seen on the aerial photo.

Old Thor missile launch pads at RAF Feltwell
OS 1:25000 scale map (2005) of old Thor missile launch pads at RAF Feltwell
Map image generated from the Get-a-map service
with permission of Ordnance Survey
Various other fascinating locations for Thor missile launch pads from the 1960s can still be seen on aerial photos of old WWII airfields. There were originally 20 Thor launch sites (including Feltwell) organised into four groups of five sites (one main, plus four support sites). Each Thor site comprised a cluster of three missile launch pads, making a total of 60 Thor missiles deployed.

Of those 20 original sites, only the following ten can still be made out on aerial photos:-

Breighton near
Selby, North Yorkshire
Catfoss near
Hull, Humberside
Caistor near
Market Rasen, Lincolnshire
Folkingham near
Sleaford, Lincolnshire
Ludford near
Market Rasen, Lincolnshire
North Luffenham near
Rutland, Leicestershire
Harrington near
Northampton
Polebrook near
Peterborough, Cambridgeshire
Shepherd's Grove
Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk
Melton Mowbray,
Leicestershire
The remaining nine Thor sites, apart from Feltwell, were at the old wartime RAF airfields at Driffield, Full Sutton, Carnaby, Tuddenham, Mepal, North Pickenham, Coleby Grange, Bardney and Hemswell.

On August 25th 2009, more than 75 firefighters struggled to contain a huge blaze in one of the old hangars at RAF Hemswell, which had been used as part of the ECO Plastics Hemswell Cliff recycling plant.

If you thought RAF North Luffenham's Thor missile launch pads were interesting, read on throughout Secret Bases to find out what else lurks alongside the old runways.

The Thor site at Bardney, on the other side of Market Rasen to the Caistor and Ludford sites, is marked on the OS 1:25000 map, in the middle of poultry farm buildings. However, the remains of the launch pads are barely visible on Getmapping's aerial photos, but can be just spotted on Google Earth.

Likewise, south of Lincoln, another old Thor site was located near to the village of Boothby Graffoe. In more recent times, the village achieved a more innocent form of fame. It was adopted as a stage name by an award winning comedian whose showbusiness career rocketed (!) following an appearance on the Opportunity Knocks TV talent show in the late 1980s.

The Thor launch pads at Boothby Graffoe's old WWII airfield at RAF Coleby Grange have been covered by outbuildings on what is now Boothby Heath Farm, but the classic three-pad Thor layout can still be seen on the 1:25000 map.

The nuclear warheads for the Thor missiles were stored at a special secure area within RAF Faldingworth, just south of a large conventional munitions storage area.

The airfield was "airbrushed" from OS maps for over 20 years, before finally making an appearance in the 1980s. It is now detailed fully at 1:25000 and even 1:10000 scales. The nuclear warhead stores at Faldingworth were also used by RAF Scampton close by.

A similar nuclear warhead storage area, used for other projects in the 1950s, can be found on Thetford Heath at Barnham in Suffolk. Note on the 1:25000 map of the site, the unmistakable – dare I say it – Pentagon shape. In modern times, the site has long been used as the very mundane sounding Gorse Industrial Estate.

The Barnham nuclear store had previously been used for storing chemical weapons. Another old mustard gas storage area can be seen further south, at the former Little Heath Forward Filling Depot (FFD). Note that it was once connected into the adjoining dismantled train line.

While you're studying the old secure depot at Barnham, take a look at another nuclear weapons storage area from the 1950s, on the north side of RAF Honington nearby. Amusingly, the old bunker area – ringed with three security fences – was still "airbrushed" from even the 1:10000 map until it was finally revealed in 2010.

In recent years, the bunkers there have been used to provide temporary accommodation for nuclear warheads travelling between AWE Burghfield, AWE Aldermaston and RNAD Coulport in Scotland. Nowadays, RAF Honington provides a base for the tri-service Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Regiment, previously known as the Joint Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) Regiment.

Former nuclear weapons area at RAF Honington
Former nuclear weapons area at RAF Honington
Hmmm ... something missing? Yes! The former nuclear weapons storage area at RAF Honington
Map image generated from the Get-a-map service
with permission of Ordnance Survey
Thor missile launch pads at Breighton
Thor missile launch pads at Caistor
Thor missile launch pads at Ludford
Thor missile launch pads at North Luffenham
Aerial views of former Thor missile launch pads on WWII airfields. Top to bottom: Breighton, Caistor, North Luffenham and Ludford
Remains of Thor missile launch pads at Harrington
The remains of the Thor missile launch pads at Harrington
Photo: "maxcady808" on Flickr.com
Remains of Thor missile launch pads at Polebrook
Remains of Thor missile launch pads at Polebrook
The remains of the Thor missile launch pads at Polebrook
RAF Honington nuclear weapons storage area
Former nuclear weapons storage area at RAF Honington
Google Maps

Bloodhound missile launch sites

Permalink Now you're used to spotting Thor launch pads, try looking for the sites of other missile systems from the 1960s. An excellent example can be found on the windy Lincolnshire coast near Cleethorpes, at the old airfield at RAF North Coates. The high security compound contained a large matrix of launch pads for the low-range Bloodhound surface-to-air missiles pointing east, intended for anti-aircraft defence at the height of the Cold War.

The pads are no longer visible on newer aerial photography. RAF North Coates is now the site of a high voltage substation (and cable trench running south of and parallel to the runway) for connecting SMart Wind's offshore Hornsea Wind Farm to Immingham's National Grid supply. Google Earth imagery from Summer 2017 shows the cable trench being dug from North Coates, through Tetney Lock, Waltham, Laceby, South Killingholme and North Killingholme.

Bloodhound missile launch pads at Rattlesden
Additionally, in a secure enclave to the north of RAF Barkston Heath, alongside the Roman road Ermine Street near Grantham, Lincolnshire, you can make out the old Bloodhound launch pads there too. More old Bloodhound missile pads can be seen over on the east side of the Breighton Thor site mentioned previously.

Two further good examples can still be seen at the old RAF Bawdsey coastal radar site near Felixstowe and Ipswich in Suffolk and at the remains of RAF Woolfox Lodge right by the A1 near Clipsham in Rutland, Leicestershire and close to the major airbase at RAF Cottesmore.

The Bloodhound pads at Bawdsey were photographed by my specialist Pilot's Eye contributor in October 2007, further below. RAF Bawdsey has another fascinating secret to give up – make sure you continue through all of Secret Bases to find out what. More Bloodhound launch pad remnants can be found at RAF Wattisham in Suffolk, RAF West Raynham in Norfolk and RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire.

Back in Suffolk, all that remains of RAF Rattlesden's Bloodhound pads, is faint scarring in a field on old Getmapping imagery from 1999 (right). There is no trace left at all on more modern Google Earth imagery. RAF Wattisham's old Bloodhound area is now used as a base for Suffolk Fire Service.

Take a look over on the east side of Robin Hood Airport near Doncaster, formerly RAF Finningley. You can spot yet more old Bloodhound launch pads on the remains of the Finningley air defence station, RAF Misson.

Nowadays, the pads are used for storage by L. Jackson and Company – specialists in the refurbishment and disposal of ex-MoD and NATO vehicles and equipment. The location is even helpfully marked on OS maps with the label, "Rocket Site"!
Bloodhound missile launch pads at Wattisham
Bloodhound missile launch pads at West Raynham
Bloodhound missile launch pads at Wyton
Bloodhound missile launch pads at North Coates
Bloodhound missile launch pads at Barkston Heath
Bloodhound missile launch pads at Bawdsey
Bloodhound missile launch pads at Finningley
Bloodhound missile launch pads at Breighton
Bloodhound missile launch pads at Woolfox Lodge
Aerial views of old Bloodhound missile launch pads. Top to bottom: Wattisham, West Raynham, Wyton, North Coates, Barkston Heath, Bawdsey, Finningley (Misson), Breighton, Woolfox Lodge
RAF Bawdsey Bloodhound launch pads
Pilot's Eye view: Looking west over RAF Bawdsey's Bloodhound launch pads
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
RAF Bawdsey Bloodhound launch pads
Pilot's Eye view: Looking south over RAF Bawdsey's Bloodhound launch pads
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases

RAF Feltwell and the Son of Star Wars

Permalink

plus: Air Force Metrology and Calibration (AFMETCAL) programme

Aside from the old Thor launch pads discussed above, what is even more interesting at RAF Feltwell is the high security enclave in the middle of the old airfield. Try experimenting with my Map Options and swap between the various map sources. Right up to 2009, even if you tried your own search of the Government's own MAGIC interactive mapping website, to consult the 1:10000 OS maps, you'd still see nothing.

All this finally changed in 2010 when it was revealed for the first time in full glorious detail at 1:10000 scale. However, the 1:25000 scale map still shows a blank (for now, anyway). Meanwhile, the 1:50000 map was updated in 2010 to provide the most subtle of hints. Can you spot the difference? See below.

Those 1:10000 maps do reveal, however, that the enclave is afforded a bit more privacy by strategically placed bushes lining RAF Feltwell's main perimeter fence. The enclave has been a vital part of the global US Space Command (USSPACECOM) network which is headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base at Colorado Springs. From 1989 until 2003 it was home to the 5th Space Surveillance Squadron of the 21st Space Wing and referred to as a Near Space Tracking Facility.

The Space Wing then moved to RAF Fylingdales, in readiness for the latest major US instigated expansion programme there and also at Menwith Hill (of which much more later). The plan for the Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) Programme is to resurrect the controversial US Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) or "Son of Star Wars" Project – whereby the next generation of warfare is carried out in space.

RAF Feltwell
RAF Feltwell
RAF Feltwell
RAF Feltwell
RAF Feltwell
RAF Feltwell's secure radome enclosure – finally emerging. Comparing 2010 and 2009 OS maps at 1:50000 scale (top), 1:25000 scale 2010 OS map with aerial photography (middle) and 1:10000 scale OS map from 2010 (bottom)
Map images generated from the Get-a-map service
with permission of Ordnance Survey
OS 1:10000 scale mapping data www.magic.gov.uk
RAF Feltwell radomes
Looking west over RAF Feltwell's secure radome enclosure
RAF Feltwell
New sports pitch or
military satellite
calibration test pattern?
RAF Feltwell
Alien Smiley Face? No!
Two baseball pitches and
Independence Day funfair
Alaska interceptor silos
MDA diagram of Alaska
missile defence silos
Note that on the aerial photos of the Feltwell base, just to the west of the secure enclave, there are two baseball pitches to provide a "home from home". Indeed, in a Google Earth imagery update in February 2008 the Feltwell base's annual Independence Day funfair was shown. A Google Earth software revision in April 2008 provided a new read-out in the status bar showing the imagery acquisition date – 2nd July 2006.

But take an even closer look at the different versions of imagery below. Firstly, you'll note how one of the two smaller radomes has disappeared. You'll also notice how the newly planted perimeter foliage is coming along nicely and apparently, another sports pitch has been added (left). But wait, what sort of sports do you know that need those strange markings?

The Technical Manual [PDF, 700KB] for the Air Force Metrology and Calibration (AFMETCAL) programme reveals that RAF Feltwell is home to USAFE's (US Air Force Europe) Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratory (PMEL).

I was thinking the "sports pitch" is most likely a test pattern for the calibration of military satellites utilising Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) – a special technique for remote sensing and mapping applications. Sounds daft, far-fetched? Curiously, the rectangle is precisely 80m long by 46m – the width of a standard RAF runway. The inner dimensions (between the corner markings) are 68m by 37m – very interesting numbers too. The Missile Defence Agency (MDA) website describes the proposed European interceptor missile silo bases in Poland. They are to be smaller than the ones already in place at Fort Greely in Alaska and at Vandenberg AFB in California.

An MDA diagram [PDF, 6MB] – using graphics superimposed onto an aerial photo of the Alaska site (left) – indicates the European interceptor sites are to be roughly 137m long by 37m wide. So the strange new object at RAF Feltwell could represent two Poland interceptor bases side by side. It's an enigma for sure. Not the Bermuda Triangle – but the Feltwell Rectangle.

Either it's a devilishly complex American game that we Brits just can't fathom, or it's a calibration test pattern for military satellites in readiness for Son of Star Wars. Find out more in the MDA's 2009 technical booklet [PDF, 6MB].

The fact that my website log revealed officials from the US Missile Defence Agency visiting it within hours of me publishing my findings, speaks volumes. Perhaps RAF Feltwell is gearing up to make a significant contribution to the programme – equal to that of the much better known Fylingdales and Menwith Hill. The national free Metro morning newspaper – that all commuters on trains, buses and the London tubes read – picked up my story on Tuesday 18th March 2008. They quoted an MoD spokesperson as suggesting it's a range for motorcycle safety training.

Hmm. Now you mention it, the US Motorcycle Safety Foundation's very detailed diagrams [PDF, 160KB] (further below) do seem remarkably similar. The following day, the story went global when the hugely popular Googlesightseeing.com did a special feature.

RAF Feltwell
RAF Feltwell
RAF Feltwell military satellite calibration grid?
Comparing July 2006 and 2005 versions of Google Earth's imagery of RAF Feltwell. A different number of radomes ... plus Independence Day funfair ... and a new calibration grid for military satellites? ... or a motorcycle safety instruction range?
RAF Feltwell military satellite calibration grid?
Top secret plans for a military satellite calibration test pattern?
© MSF
RAF Feltwell military satellite calibration grid?
... or a motorcycle safety training range?
© MSF
Norfolk US Naval Base, Virginia
Two more side by side in Norfolk ... that's Norfolk US Naval Base, Virginia
Google Maps 3D
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Seems familiar? Motorcycle Safety Foundation training range, Interstate 25, Pan American Freeway NE, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Bing Bird's Eye

The SAS and PMCs – Private Military Companies

Permalink Going back to the Defford former SIGINT base, discussed earlier: on the other side of the nearby town of Pershore, you'll find Throckmorton Airfield. Both of the Defford and Throckmorton sites are yet more "Disused Airfields" on OS maps, which of course can only mean they're of great MoD significance.

Throckmorton was home to the old DERA Pershore base (which itself grew out of the Royal Radar Establishment) and in recent years, just like Defford, it was operated by QinetiQ.

Throughout the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, the airfield was known as RAF Pershore and it was one of over 30 dispersal sites for the UK's strategic nuclear deterrent, the Vulcan V-Bomber force, carrying the Blue Danube atomic weapon.

Rather than a "Secret Base", Throckmorton's village residents are all too familiar with the site. In 2001, one end of the old airfield was used as a mass burial ground for animal carcasses during the UK's Foot and Mouth Disease disaster. In 2002, the other end of the airfield was considered by the Government as a possible location for a new "processing centre" for asylum seekers, until villagers waged a very successful campaign against it.

Many former members of the SAS, the UK's Special Forces, have left to set-up their own specialist operations known as PMCs – Private Military Companies or Contractors. One such leading worldwide PMC, ArmorGroup, had based its new close protection (CP) and defensive driving training facility at Throckmorton Airfield. Since 2008, ArmorGroup had been part of the G4S Group (formerly known as Group 4 Securicor).

Another PMC made up of ex-SAS members (now part of ArmorGroup) – Phoenix CP  [PDF, 200KB] – has used a close protection, counter-surveillance and communications training base at Longworth Hall in the village of Lugwardine just east of Hereford. Due to the handgun ban, specialist live firearms training by the PMCs is held outside the UK in places like Switzerland and obviously America.

During 2007, Phoenix CP announced they were vacating Longworth Hall and moving to a new training facility "by the end of summer". Curiously, in February 2008 the Phoenix CP website suddenly went dead and the parent company ArmorGroup announced that the courses had been suspended  [PDF, 40KB].

Yet another PMC, the AKE Group – spearheaded by former SAS member Andrew Kain – started off with its admin HQ at Mortimer House, within an industrial estate in the Holmer suburb of Hereford. In 2005, AKE received the Queen's Award for Enterprise, in the International Trade category, for "risk mitigation".

In 2006, AKE moved its HQ into the historic centre of Hereford, near the cathedral, to an office within St. Owen's Chambers, on the street bearing the same name. A presence was also established in Albyn Terrace in the heart of Aberdeen in Scotland, at the office of a marine logistics company which provides expert solutions in offshore personnel transfers. In late 2007, AKE was acquired by the Cerberus Group, run by yet another SAS privateer, Will Scully.

The ex-SAS officers have based their own private operations close to their former homes at the original Bradbury Lines barracks in Hereford's Lower Bullingham district and the new Stirling Lines depot, which since 1999 has been based at the much bigger former RAF training centre at Credenhill.

Note at the far southern end of the Credenhill base the remains of a dismantled antenna array similar in layout to the famous Chicksands aerial system also featured in Secret Bases. It can be seen in extreme close-up on Windows Live Local. Following a major UK imagery update in June 2007, it can also be seen in high resolution on Google Earth.

The AKE Group holds regular instructional seminars further afield, at a hotel and conference centre deep inside SAS training country among the Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons, at the village of Allt-Yr-Ynys on the Wales / Herefordshire border.

Less than ten miles to the north east, you can find the Pontrilas SAS counter-terrorism trainer unit and its infamous mock-up jet hidden in a forest clearing, featured elsewhere in Secret Bases. But do the PMCs have access to this?

The amphibious SAS sister organisation, the Special Boat Service (SBS), have their HQ within the Royal Navy's shore establishment HMS Excellent on Portsmouth's Whale Island, just north of the main Naval Base.

However, the SBS training base is at at the huge Royal Marines depot at Hamworthy near Poole, Dorset. It sits next door to the popular holiday resort's very public Rockley Sands caravan park and is surrounded by all the exclusive multi-million pound real estate around Poole Harbour. Just a little further south, next to all the boat yards at Lake Marina, you'll find the SBS harbour depot where all the equipment is kept.

In March 2010 it appeared on Google Street View even showing the perimeter sign that reads "This is a prohibited place within the meaning of the Official Secrets Act – no loitering, sketching or photography". The Street View imagery was removed just a week later.

Across at Chichester Harbour on Thorney Island you will discover an enclave at the north of the disused Thorney Island Airfield (now the Army's Baker Barracks) which is used by the SAS reserves 63 Sqn of 18 Regiment UK Special Forces (UKSF) Signals Unit. The helical antenna arrays are deployed to communicate via the Skynet 5 military satellites. Another can be found in the middle of SAS Credenhill HQ and yet another set can be spotted on top of the Admiralty Citadel adjoining Horse Guards Parade in Whitehall, Central London. As you would expect, the UK military's war command and control centre at PJHQ Northwood in north west London also has a helical antenna array on top of the bunker.

Longworth Hall
Phoenix CP close protection training at Longworth Hall, Lugwardine, Hereford
© ArmorGroup International plc
Remains of SAS HQ Credenhill antenna array
Aerial view of the remains of an old antenna array at SAS HQ Credenhill
Aerial photo
SBS Depot at Poole Harbour
CENSORED – I Spy the SBS Depot at Poole Harbour on Google Street View. The sign reads "This is a prohibited place within the meaning of the Official Secrets Act – no loitering, sketching or photography"
SBS Depot at Poole Harbour
SBS Depot at Poole Harbour
Google Maps 3D
SAS Reserves 18 Signals Unit
63 Sqn SAS Reserves 18 Signal Regiment Helical Antenna Array (bottom right)
Bagnold Lodge, Baker Barracks, Thorney Island, Chichester Harbour
Google Maps 3D
SAS helical antenna at RAF Credenhill
SAS Credenhill helical antenna array
Bing aerial photo
Helical antenna at Admiralty Citadel, Horse Guards, Whitehall, London
Admiralty Citadel helical antenna array
Google Street View
Helical antenna at Admiralty Citadel, Horse Guards, Whitehall, London
Admiralty Citadel helical antenna array
Google Street View
Helical antenna at PJHQ Northwood
Helical antenna array at PJHQ Northwood
Google Maps 3D
Helical antenna at PJHQ Northwood
Helical antenna array at PJHQ Northwood
Bing Bird's Eye

BBC Radio 4: Lives in a Landscape – "Under Throckmorton"

PermalinkListeners to the UK's BBC Radio 4 on the morning of Monday 4th September 2006 were spluttering over their eleven o'clock cup of tea. A new series of "Lives in a Landscape" – a gentle documentary series in the style of "Down your Way" – kicked off with an episode called "Under Throckmorton", devoted to this tiny village in the heart of the English countryside. It could almost be the location for Radio 4's old favourite long-running soap "The Archers".

Yorkie
ArmorGroup TV News Crew training
© ArmorGroup
Writer and presenter James Maw had approached me to act as research consultant on the programme. The BBC blurb teased listeners with the question, "What is a group of former soldiers doing speeding around the runway?"

James Maw interviewed an ex-SAS soldier, referred to discreetly as just "Yorkie" because of his broad Yorkshire accent, but whose true identity and role as ArmorGroup's Director of UK Training (top right and further below) is revealed on their promotional video (below).

In the Radio 4 documentary, he hinted at his past SAS operations including a hostage release negotiation in West Africa and the destruction of radar installations and communications equipment in Iraq.

"Yorkie" then explained that in his new role at Throckmorton he now trains people like TV news crews, working in hostile regions around the world such as Iraq and Afghanistan, how to survive (bottom right).

In Radio 4's Lives in a Landscape, the presenter was given a roller coaster ride around the Throckmorton runways at high speed, in a special off-road vehicle which also had an attachment for machine guns.

Yorkie at Throckmorton Airfield
Ex-SAS soldier "Yorkie" – now ArmorGroup's Director of UK Training presents the corporate promotional video filmed at Throckmorton Airfield
© ArmorGroup International plc
ArmorGroup promo video at Throckmorton Airfield, Pershore, Worcestershire
Click to watch on YouTube

NCISRA – Naval Criminal Investigative Service Resident Agent

PermalinkOver on the other side of the M5 motorway from their Throckmorton Airfield location, QinetiQ have significant presence in the Worcestershire town of Great Malvern. One site at the south of the town is at the old Royal Radar Establishment (RRE). Research work here involves everything from stealth and radar jamming to computer hacking.

Another QinetiQ base in Malvern can be found to the north of the town next to an old DERA location, referred to by locals as MoD North Site, which is due for redevelopment by the council.

By checking the aerial photos below, note how the tell-tale geometric building layouts for both of the Malvern sites are identical to not only the old parts of the GCHQ bases in Benhall and Oakley in Cheltenham, but also the Defence Logistics Organisation (DLO) sites at Ensleigh and Fox Hill in Bath (since April 2007, DE&S – Defence Equipment and Support).

Furthermore, compare those aerial shots with another old GCHQ site at the end of Lime Grove in Eastcote, West London near Ruislip, Middlesex. This site was used temporarily by the Government Codes and Ciphers School (GC&CS) after leaving "Station X" at Bletchley Park in the late 1940s, but before moving to the permanent Cheltenham base – by then renamed GCHQ – in the early 1950s. Later, the old GCHQ Eastcote "Government Buildings" were occupied by civil servants from the Department for the Environment and the Department of Transport.

The US Navy had a significant presence there during the Cold War and they still keep a US Embassy liaison unit for the DoD's naval recruitment team.

It has also provided barracks for the US Marine Corps Security Force (MCSF), whose members protect the US Navy establishment at 7 North Audley Street, Grosvenor Square, London, in the ever important counter-terrorism role. Meanwhile, the US Embassy nearby is protected by the Marine Corps Embassy Security Command (MCESC) – the new name for the Marine Security Guard Battalion (MSGB) since April 2007.

Even more intriguingly, one of the buildings at Eastcote provides the "London, UK" office for the US Navy's NCISRA – the Naval Criminal Investigative Service's Resident Agent. Worldwide, the facilities are also referred to as Resident Units (NCISRU) and Regional Offices (NCISRO). NCIS agents are tasked with countering and investigating terrorism, espionage, computer intrusion, fraud and other serious crimes against people and property.

Since 2003, there's even been a hit TV drama called NCIS shown in the US in primetime on the CBS Network and also in many other countries around the world. In Summer 2006, the UK's Channel 5 also showed it on Saturday nights.
US Navy's MCSF and NCIS and former GCHQ Eastcote on Google Earth
US Navy's Marine Corps Security Force & Naval Criminal Investigative Service and former GCHQ Eastcote, West London, close-up on Google Earth
DE&S Ensleigh building layout
DE&S Fox Hill building layout
Malvern North Site building layout
GCHQ Oakley building layout
GCHQ Benhall building layout
Malvern RRE building layout
Aerial views of more tell-tale geometric MoD building layouts. Top to bottom: DE&S Ensleigh, DE&S Fox Hill, Malvern North, Malvern RRE, GCHQ Benhall and GCHQ Oakley
Britain's very early signals and radar research work first started on England's south coast at Steamer Point, on top of Friars Cliff, close to Mudeford near Christchurch, Dorset.

I remember spending many childhood summers at the neighbouring Sandhills Holiday Centre at Mudeford. I was fascinated by the huge white golf ball radomes further along the beach at the Signals Research and Development Establishment (SRDE). This site hosted the UK's first military communications satellite ground terminal. The SRDE's main base was a little further inland at what is now BAE Systems at Somerford, Christchurch.

In 1980, the SRDE finally pulled out of the Christchurch location and the activities were merged with those of the RRE at Malvern. Today, a commemorative plaque at the old Steamer Point radome site remembers the signals and radar experts who worked there.

SRDE's main base at Christchurch, Dorset with the Steamer Point radome in the background
SRDE Christchurch (now BAE Systems) circa 1970 (looking south east to the Steamer Point radome in the background)
Photo: Barrie Wells, author: "A History of BAE Systems Christchurch"

Atomic Weapons Establishments (AWE)

Permalink

Plans for UK nuclear warhead plants major upgrade programme revealed

Application
Summaries
AWE Aldermaston
Upgrade Projects: Key Planning Applications 2005 – 2021
Plans and drawings
Materials Handling Store
Condition 8 (Materials) of Energy Centre application 15/02957/COMIND
Condition 7 (Construction Method) and Condition 9 (Soft Landscaping) of Energy Centre application 15/02957/COMIND
Demolition of two and three storey office blocks towards the southern boundary of the AWE Aldermaston site
Proposed energy centre, pump house and fuel tanks including demolition and clearance of four of the existing buildings on the site
Overcladding of an existing building
Condition 3 of Application 14/02459/COMIND. Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS)
New intake substation and construction related infrastructure including access roads
Condition 8 (Post-construction Review) of Project Circinus HEFF 07/02438/COMIND
Three 25m high exhaust flues for UPS diesel generators
New lighting and CCTV columns at west security gate's Vehicle Search Area
Recladding of an industrial building
Erection of 6 masts 18.5m in height to support the catenary cables of the new lightning protection system
Installation of vehicle search bay shelter and security lighting
Clearance of historic WWII buildings
Augmentation of lightning protection system
Demolition of old boiler house
Lightning Protection System for Project SSEM
Lightning Protection System for Project B37
Lightning Protection System for Project Cygnus 2
Replacement of all windows and cladding plus installation of roof edge protection of existing office building
Over cladding of existing office building
Replacement lattice structure mast for radio services
Demolition of former laboratory, office building, and ventilation stack foundation
Technology Development Centre including access roads, construction compound, fencing, gates and ancillary facilities
Verification Report (Condition 7 of Technology Development Centre application)
Landscaping Scheme (Condition 4 of Technology Development Centre application)
Remediation of contaminated site (Condition 6 of Technology Development Centre application)
Replacement lightning conductors for explosives handling facility
Project Pegasus Enriched Uranium Storage and Handling Facility
SuDS – Sustainable Drainage System (Revised Condition 12 of Project Pegasus application)
Conditions 2 (Samples), 3 (Cycle Parking), 4, 5 (Landscaping), 7 (Floor Levels) and 9 (External Lighting) of Project Pegasus application
SuDS – Sustainable Drainage System (Condition 12 of Project Pegasus application)
Conditions 10 (Drainage), 11 (Demolition) and 14 (Water Supply) of Project Pegasus application
Landscaping and Tree Protection (conditions 4 and 6 of HEFF application)
Materials (condition 2 of HEFF application)
Phased Demolition and Site Clearance Plan (condition 13 of HEFF application)
Emergency Assembly Building refurbishment
"Froggers" emergency evacuation and decontamination buildings
New office accommodation
Project Hydrus Flash Radiographic X-ray Source Diagnostics Hydrodynamics Facility
Project Circinus HEFF – High Explosives Fabrication Facility
Non-material amendment to 07/02438/COMIND HEFF – High Explosives Fabrication Facility
Condition 4 (Building Recording Programme) of Emergency Assembly Building 10/00666/FUL
Emergency Assembly Building refurbishment: amended plans for 09/01911/CERTP
Installation of 35 lighting columns: 29 x 6m and 6 x 10m at 6 separate sites
Project Gemini. New office accommodation and ORION computer support services
SuDS – Sustainable Drainage System (Condition 25 of Project Gemini application)
ORION laser research facility
Application
Summaries
AWE Burghfield
Upgrade Projects: Key Planning Applications 2005 – 2021
Plans and drawings
Proposed Multi-Material Facility (MMF) development site, ancillary buildings, drainage, landscaping, internal roads and delivery areas
Perimeter fencing for Burghfield Brook flood alleviation scheme
Roof replacement and new wall cladding for an existing office building
Demolition of 12 and 13 The Mearings, Burghfield
Demolition of small buildings used as process areas and mess rooms constructed between 1940 and 1983
Demolition of a storage building and a former process building
Vehicle search bay shelter at main security gate
Proposed water storage tank to replace existing reservoir
Main Gate Security Enhancement Project: Replacement lighting consisting of five 10 metre high lighting columns and three 6 metre high lighting columns
Project Phoenix CMR – Conventional Manufacturing Rationalisation Facility (Renewal of 08/00954/COMIND)
Amended roof plans for CMR planning application
Remediation Method and Contaminated Land Assessment (Conditions 13 and 14 of CMR planning application)
External Lighting scheme (Condition 11 of CMR planning application)
Conditions for Landscaping, Tree works, Risk Assessment and Remediation, Phased demolition for CMR application
CMR – Conventional Manufacturing Rationalisation Facility
Construction of replacement site boiler house together with ancillary facilities
Condition 5 (demolition schedule), Condition 8 (historic building record), Condition 10 (method statement) of boiler house construction application
Landscape Scheme (Condition 4 of boiler house construction application)
Project MENSA: Construction of main process facility (MPF) and support building with 16 lightning protector towers and associated infrastructure
Burghfield Brook Flood Alleviation Scheme for MENSA application
Conditions 5 and 8 of Burghfield Brook Flood Alleviation Scheme for MENSA application
Condition 4 of Burghfield Brook Flood Alleviation Scheme for MENSA application
Conditions 6 and 7 of Burghfield Brook Flood Alleviation Scheme for MENSA application
Condition 11 of Burghfield Brook Flood Alleviation Scheme for MENSA application
Condition 12 (Site Clearance) of Main Process Facility (MPF) for MENSA application
Burghfield Brook Flood Alleviation Scheme (Screening Option) for MENSA application
Construction materials (Condition 2 for MENSA application)
Alterations to Project MENSA. Changes to Main Process Facility roof
SuDS – Sustainable Drainage System (condition 13 for MENSA application) [replacement]
SuDS – Sustainable Drainage System (condition 13 for MENSA application) [withdrawn]
Bird and bat box mitigation (condition 17 for MENSA application)
Land contamination assessment (condition 15 for MENSA application)
Floor levels and floodlighting (conditions 6 and 8 for MENSA application)
Phased demolition plan and foundation designs (conditions 12 and 16 for MENSA application)
Floor Levels (condition 6 for MENSA application)
Off Site Works (condition 18 for MENSA application)
Building Materials (condition 2 for MENSA application)
Landscaping (condition 3 for MENSA application)
Remedial Work (condition 9 for MENSA application)
Development Phasing Plan (condition 19 for Project MENSA application)
BREEAM Construction Quality Assessment (condition 5 for Project MENSA application)
Access Road Layout Improvement Plan (condition 20 for CMR application)
Staff restaurant and conference facilities
SSCM – Small Scale Components Manufacturing Facility
Building demolition plan (condition 11 for SSCM application)
Building Materials (condition 2 for SSCM application)
Remedial Work (condition 14 for SSCM application)
K9 Facility – MoD Police Dog Handlers Building
Project Alder – "Brise Soleil" addition to main building
Now, let's consider two classic examples of Britain's "top secret" sites which just didn't feature on maps ... until January 2005.

The UK Government's key atomic weapons sites are located at Burghfield and Aldermaston, both in Berkshire. But by studying the OS maps, you'd have thought they might be hidden underground. The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Burghfield was last included on an OS map way back in 1974 and had never been seen since. Rather comically, AWE Aldermaston (which is actually the size of a small town) kept appearing and disappearing, depending on which issue of the OS map you were looking at and which scale. It reminded me of the legend of Brigadoon.

Until December 2004, the older OS map data through the Multimap website just showed AWE Aldermaston as plain woodland and AWE Burghfield as a completely empty field. Ordnance Survey's Get-a-map site, which obviously has all the latest definitive data, correctly showed the Aldermaston site (innocently labelled "Depot") at 1:50000. But when you viewed the same area at 1:25000, the site suddenly reverted to Burnham's Copse.

However, all this changed suddenly in January 2005, when OS updated their online 1:25000 map data to show both AWE Aldermaston and AWE Burghfield in full detail, but the 1:50000 scale data for Burghfield was to take another 18 months before being updated.

The Royal Mail address database correctly lists AWE Aldermaston (with the post code "RG7 4PR"). However, AWE Burghfield is hidden away masquerading under the innocuously sounding address, "1 The Mearings, Burghfield, Reading, RG30 3RR", which turns out to be the main high security gate. Try plugging those post codes into Multimap and Getmapping and see what happens.

Before January 2005, even on Get-a-map, AWE Burghfield was conspicuous by its absence at both 1:50000 and 1:25000 scales. It is actually situated in the space between Burghfield Place, Burnthouse Bridge and Grazeley Green. It wasn't until July 2006 that the Burghfield atomic weapons site finally made it back onto OS maps at 1:50000 scale after 32 years in the secrecy wilderness.

Trident Missile Storage Bunkers
Consider AWE Burghfield again but this time, view the aerial photograph on Multimap's site and overlay the map, which has now caught up and also features the new data. Try the same with AWE Aldermaston's aerial photo and the map overlay. Indeed, this hilarious "now you see it – now you don't" trick (below), showing glaring discrepancies between OS maps and Getmapping's aerial photos, was the original inspiration for this whole website back in 2003.

In December 2007, Burghfield was featured in full Bird's Eye detail, revealing the nuclear warhead assembly and disassembly area for the UK's Trident Missiles. The double-fenced compound comprises special mounds known as "Gravel Gerties", after a character in the Dick Tracy comic strip. They are designed to contain any plutonium release in the event of an accidental detonation of the conventional explosives in the warheads. Note the numerous lightning conductor towers. The storage depot for the nuclear-armed fully-assembled Trident Missiles is up in the mountains of Scotland. Check out new high resolution aerial photography of the Trident bunkers and submarine arming jetty on my special implementation of Microsoft Virtual Earth (right).

Multimap's OS map / aerial photo overlay view of AWE Burghfield
The original inspiration for this "Secret Bases" website. Getmapping's aerial photo with an OS map overlay on Multimap. AWE Burghfield – Now you see it, now you don't DO
AWE Burghfield Trident warhead assembly compound Gravel Gerties
Bird's Eye view (looking north) of AWE Burghfield Trident Missile nuclear warhead assembly / disassembly compound comprising special plutonium containment mounds – "Gravel Gerties"
Bing Bird's Eye
AWE Burghfield Trident warhead assembly compound Gravel Gerties
Bird's Eye view (looking east) of AWE Burghfield's "Gravel Gerties" with lightning conductor towers
Bing Bird's Eye
Just to the north east of Burnthouse Bridge, you can make out the remains of a disused train branch line. This line once connected into the nearby main line which, further south, goes right past the former munitions depot at Bramley (mentioned earlier). The maps and photos of the Bramley munitions depot show that it, too, was once connected into the same main line. During WWII, the AWE Burghfield site was a conventional munitions factory.

For the residents living next to these sites, they are all too real. Especially when they have been forced to use bottled water because of suspicions that the local supply had been contaminated by toxic chemicals.

The AWE sites and all other sensitive UK military and Government sites, such as Faslane nuclear submarine base, are patrolled by Ministry of Defence Police (MDP). Their main training centre and MDP HQ is contained within a deserted WWII USAF airbase at RAF Wethersfield, a few miles north west of Braintree in Essex.

There are two Operational Support Units (OSU), for rapid emergency deployment of MDP Officers. The southern OSU is at Wethersfield HQ, while the northern OSU is within RAF Dishforth, between Ripon and Thirsk in North Yorkshire. The unit is strategically situated alongside the A1(M), with good access to all major routes.

AWE have another small site at AWE Blacknest at Brimpton Common, just a couple of miles to the west of AWE Aldermaston. This site, within an old country house, contains large computer systems and is staffed by scientists researching seismological activity, in order to verify nuclear test bans.

A former top secret remote AWE facility, involved in testing nuclear weapon triggers, can be seen at Orford Ness on the coast of Suffolk. The derelict remains of strange buildings resembling pagodas can be spotted on the beach. Further north up the coast, the remains of the 1960s Cobra Mist over-the-horizon radar project can be found. All these Orford Ness features are pictured further below in exclusive Pilot's Eye Views.

On the images of AWE Aldermaston and AWE Burghfield below, hover over each image with your mouse pointer to compare each aerial photo with the corresponding OS map. Click on each image to switch the map between the different scales and data revisions.

AWE Aldermaston's "Burning Ground" annexe

Using the latest hi-res imagery on Google Earth and Google Maps, next to AWE Aldermaston itself, you can spot a mysterious secure depot, hidden in a clearing in a wood called The Birches. Furthermore, the depot is clearly connected directly into AWE Aldermaston using an underpass beneath Red Lane, a minor public road which runs alongside the complex's eastern boundary.

In June 2006, I made a formal application to the MoD under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. The official response revealed that the depot is used by AWE Aldermaston as a "burning ground" to incinerate non-nuclear explosive waste material.

In my special implementation of Google Maps further below, look out for some other Secret Bases in the area clustered closely together, the purposes of which are revealed later in this page. Keep on reading.

Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) Aldermaston
Aerial view of AWE Aldermaston
Hover over the image with your mouse pointer to compare the aerial photo with the map!
Click on the image to switch the map between 1:50000 and 1:25000 (2004 / 2005) scales.

Map images generated from the Get-a-map service
with permission of Ordnance Survey
Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) Burghfield
Aerial view of AWE Burghfield
Hover over the image with your mouse pointer to compare the aerial photo with the map!
Click on the image to switch the map between 1:50000 (2004 / 2006) and 1:25000 (2004 / 2005) scales.

Map images generated from the Get-a-map service
with permission of Ordnance Survey
AWE Burghfield at 1:25000 scale in 2004
AWE Burghfield at 1:25000 scale in 2005
AWE Aldermaston at 1:25000 scale in 2004
AWE Aldermaston at 1:25000 scale in 2005
"The Truth Is Out There" ... finally! AWE Burghfield (top two images) and AWE Aldermaston (bottom two images) suddenly emerge from farmers' fields after a record breaking mysterious absence of 30 years!
Ordnance Survey's 1:25000 scale map data from 2004 and 2005
Map images generated from the Get-a-map service
with permission of Ordnance Survey
AWE Aldermaston ORION Laser Research Facility
AWE Aldermaston ORION Laser Research Facility
Comparing Google Earth imagery from April 2008 (top) and 2004 (bottom) showing the new ORION Laser Research Facility at AWE Aldermaston
AWE Aldermaston
Pilot's Eye view: Looking west over AWE Aldermaston showing ORION Laser Research Facility and two new office buildings (left)
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
AWE Aldermaston ORION Laser Research Facility
Pilot's Eye view: AWE Aldermaston's two new office buildings (left) and ORION Laser Research Facility (right)
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
AWE Aldermaston Enriched Uranium Storage and Handling Facility
Project Pegasus: 3D Artist's impression looking north over AWE Aldermaston's new Enriched Uranium Storage and Handling Facility
© West Berkshire Council
AWE Aldermaston
Project Hydrus: 3D Artist's impression looking north over AWE Aldermaston's new Flash Radiographic X-ray Source Diagnostics Hydrodynamics Facility
© AWE plc
AWE Aldermaston ORION Laser Research Facility
3D Artist's impression looking south over AWE Aldermaston's new ORION Laser Research Facility
© West Berkshire Council
AWE Aldermaston ORION
I Spy the AWE Aldermaston ORION facility on Google Street View
Google Street View
AWE Aldermaston HEFF High Explosives Fabrication Facility
Project Circinus: 3D Artist's impression looking west over the new AWE Aldermaston HEFF – High Explosives Fabrication Facility
© West Berkshire Council
AWE Burghfield
Pilot's Eye view: looking west over AWE Burghfield
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
AWE Burghfield SSCM
AWE Burghfield SSCM
AWE Burghfield SSCM Small Scale Components Manufacturing Facility
Artist's 3D impressions and Google's oblique aerial view looking south over AWE Burghfield's SSCM Small Scale Components Manufacturing Facility and old building
Google Maps 3D
AWE Burghfield CMR Conventional Manufacturing Rationalisation Facility
Bird's Eye view looking over the site for AWE Burghfield's CMR Conventional Manufacturing Rationalisation Facility at the north east perimeter
Bing Bird's Eye
AWE Burghfield CMR Conventional Manufacturing Rationalisation Facility
AWE Burghfield's CMR completed in 2018
Google Earth
AWE Burghfield MoD Police Dog Handler Facility
Bird's Eye view looking south over AWE Burghfield's "K9" Facility. MoD Police Dog Handler Building at the northern perimeter
Bing Bird's Eye
AWE Burghfield Project Mensa Main Processing Facility MPF
3D Artist's impression looking south over the new AWE Burghfield Project MENSA Main Processing Facility (MPF)
© West Berkshire Council
Atomic Weapons Establishments (Aldermaston, Blacknest and Burghfield)
Click for more Secret Bases on
Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Street View
AWE Aldermaston heatmap on Strava
AWE Aldermaston staff cycling into work tracked on the Strava fitness app
Strava Heatmap
AWE Burghfield heatmap on Strava
AWE Burghfield staff tracked on the Strava fitness app
Strava Heatmap
AWE pagodas at Orford Ness, Suffolk
Pilot's Eye view: Looking north west over the former Atomic Weapons Establishment nuclear weapons test pagodas at Orford Ness, Suffolk
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
AWE nuclear weapons trigger test facility at Orford Ness, Suffolk
Pilot's Eye view: Looking south east over the former Atomic Weapons Establishment nuclear trigger test facility at Orford Ness, Suffolk
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
Cobra Mist radar station at Orford Ness, Suffolk
Pilot's Eye view: Looking north east over the former Cobra Mist radar station at Orford Ness
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
Incidentally, all of the UK's non-nuclear Royal Ordnance factories were acquired by BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace) some time ago. One of these can be spotted near Kidderminster in the West Midlands, at Summerfield.

This old ordnance factory was used by BAE Systems to research and develop motors and fuels for rocket propulsion on missile systems. The fuels were stored in huge underground silos and the Summerfield site was patrolled by armed guards – hopefully non-smokers.

Any mention of the Summerfield site was dropped from the BAE Systems website in early 2005. This was simply because the site has been taken over by the Roxel Group – a merger between BAE Systems Rocket Motors Division and the French defence company Celerg.

Planning permission documents at Bridgnorth District Council, published on the Internet in Summer 2005, revealed that the Roxel Group – new incumbents at Summerfield – test their rocket engines at the Wyre Forest Test Range.

The site is hidden in a forest clearing at Postensplain between the villages of Buttonoak and Buttonbridge, close to Bewdley, Worcestershire. Right up until a data revision in 2010, only the huge rectangular perimeter fence surrounding the site was shown on 1:25000 and 1:10000 scale – but no buildings. Still nothing at all is shown at 1:50000 scale.

In Summer 2007, Google Earth finally revealed both the Wyre Forest range and Roxel's French test facility south of Paris. It is within the Bois du Palais forest near the village of Le Subdray, just south west of Bourges.

Hold on a minute. Does that clearing in Wyre Forest remind you of something else? Something quite sinister in fact. Take another look below.

Another test range hidden in a clearing can be found in mid-Wales, close to the sources of the Rivers Severn and Wye. Take a very close look at Hafren Forest near Llanidloes. The clearing is an old disused quarry which during the 1980s was used by the ubiquitous BAE Systems for very high voltage research experiments – leading to many "UFO" reports in the area.

It is thought that BAE's missiles and satellites division at Stevenage, Hertfordshire (now EADS Astrium) was working on a "Star Wars" contract for the US Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) programme. Modern incarnations of the project – referred to as "Son of Star Wars" – are known as Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) and National Missile Defence (NMD).

More recently, the test range has been used by the University of Wales, Aberystwyth's Centre for Explosion Studies and the Shock and Detonation Physics Research Group (known as Shockwaves). That actually closed in 2004, but the key personnel and facilities were acquired in 2005 and incorporated into a new specialist company based at a technology park in Aberystwyth. HazRes (Hazard Research and Risk Consultants Limited) assisted clients in the gas, oil and petrochemical industries in recognising, quantifying and managing hazards relating to flammable and explosive materials. HazRes closed in May 2017.

Aerial view of Roxel's Wyre Forest Test Range for rocket engines
Aerial view of Roxel's Wyre Forest Test Range for rocket engines
Wyre Forest - click to reveal
Something else quite sinister in Wyre Forest?
Click on the image above to reveal!
Aerial view of HazRes test range within Hafren Forest, Llanidloes, Powys
Aerial view of HazRes Explosives Test Range within Hafren Forest near Llanidloes, Powys
Presumably the fuels at Roxel's Summerfield plant were also transported for use by the Rocket Propulsion Establishment (RPE), formerly run by BAE Systems, at Westcott in Buckinghamshire. The majority of the site is now given over to the Westcott Venture Park, hosting dozens of industrial companies. However, BAE Systems still have a key office there. It specialises in advising worldwide clients on the environmental issues involved in decommissioning and converting old MoD related sites, once associated with the storage and testing of ordnance and dangerous chemicals, to "normal" use. How apt.

As soon as the hi-res aerial photography of RPE Westcott became available on Google Earth, many enthusiastic readers of "Secret Bases" contacted me, excited at spotting an apparent SIGINT enclave just to the north. They were convinced that the remote depot - in the middle of farmers' fields, ringed by fortress-like security and with an obvious communications tower – was in covert use by SIS or GCHQ. My correspondents were surprised that I'd overlooked it. However, reality is rather more mundane. A bit of research revealed that it is actually Transco's Aylesbury Gas Compressor Station, utilising huge Rolls-Royce turbines and connected into a major underground pipeline. Other similar stations are sometimes marked cryptically on OS maps as "GVC" – Gas Valve Compounds. They are known in the gas transportation industry as AGIs – Above Ground Installations.

One can be spotted at Steppingley in Bedfordshire, alongside the M1 motorway, hidden in a clearing in Flitwick Plantation. Another one is at Willington, to the north east. It doesn't appear on most maps but a tantalising hint is present at 1:10000 scale. You can even use Google Earth to "fly" along the 20km excavation trench connecting these two locations, which is the Transco gas pipeline upgrade project from 2001 / 2002.

Another good example can be seen near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, next to the old RAF Kimbolton wartime airfield. Here, you get a Gas Compressor Station and a Gas Valve Compound next to each other, both of which are clearly labelled on the 1:10000 map. Yet another impressive example can be found concealed within Pitchers Wood near Woldingham in Surrey. It is alongside the M25 motorway's Clacket Lane services and close to Biggin Hill's old wartime airfield over the border in Kent.

Perhaps the most impressive example of all is at the most logical location – where North Sea Gas comes into the UK off the north east coast of Scotland. Consider a suspicious clearing in woodland near the town of Westhill on the western edge of the city of Aberdeen. Take a close look at Swailend Wood near the rural crossroads village of Echt. The massive Aberdeen Gas Compressor Station is on the site of what was once just a tiny farmstead known as North Finnercy. Whilst not yet available on Google Earth, it is revealed in full detail in close-up aerial photography from Getmapping through the Windows Live Local site.

Gas Compressor Station at Pitchers Wood, Woldingham, Surrey
Aerial view of Gas Compressor Station at Pitchers Wood, Woldingham, Surrey
and the old BBC Tatsfield Wireless Station (bottom right)
BBC Tatsfield Wireless Station at Pitchers Wood, Woldingham, Surrey
BBC Tatsfield Wireless Station and the Transco Gas Compressor at Pitchers Wood
Bing Bird's Eye
Gas Compressor Station at Swailend Wood, Echt, Westhill, Aberdeenshire
Aberdeen Gas Compressor Station at Swailend Wood, Echt, Westhill
Aerial photo
DSDA Ambrosden
Pilot's Eye view: Looking south west over DSDA Ambrosden at Graven Hill, Bicester, Oxfordshire
Click for more Pilot's Eye Views of Secret Bases
The old RPE Westcott site is quite close to the MoD's massive Defence Storage and Distribution Agency (DSDA) depots at Upper Arncott and Ambrosden near Bicester in Oxfordshire, both of which are served by extensive train line systems. The DSDA Ambrosden site at Graven Hill is pictured above, my contributor with a private pilot's licence.

Other large DSDA sites of interest can be found at Ashchurch, near Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire and Donnington, near Telford, Shropshire. There are no less than six DSDA depots dotted around RAF Stafford's Beaconside base, which is actually due to close in 2007.

Many of the DSDA depots also provide facilities for the Army Base Repair Organisation (ABRO). The ABRO Donnington site was seriously affected by severe defence cuts announced by the MoD in November 2005.

Two other BAE Systems sites worthy of note – both former WWII munitions facilities – can be spotted at Puriton near Bridgwater in Somerset alongside the M5 motorway and at Radway Green near Crewe in Cheshire, beside the M6. Notice that both sites are, or were, served by train branch lines and are just labelled as "Factory" and "Works" respectively, even on 1:10000 scale OS maps.

Thinking of rockets, take a look at the Spadeadam Forest close to the English/Scottish border, in Hadrian's Wall country. RAF Spadeadam, just north of the village of Gilsland in Cumbria, is nowadays a massive warfare tactics testing range for electronic counter measures.

In the 1950s and 1960s, clearings in the forest were used for the development and testing of missiles and rocket engines, most notably the Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) project "Blue Streak". The old engine test area is at Priorlancy (or Prior Lancy) and the rocket & missile test area can be spotted at Greymare Hill. Further evidence of military activity is indicated by some other very interesting clearings in the forest at Green Hill, Low King Hill, Kingturn Rigg and the Range Control Unit at Berry Hill.

Another mysterious clearing can be found north east of the Berry Hill control unit, at Trowyshaw Rigg but it doesn't show up until viewed on MAGIC's 1:10000 map. The close-up hi-res aerial view of Getmapping's imagery from the Live Local service reveals an apparent military airfield with two runways, hidden in Spadeadam Forest. There are even numerous jet aircraft on the ground ready to launch.

Hold on. The clearing at Trowyshaw Rigg is just a dummy airfield layout for the aircrew practising on the Warfare Tactics Range. The planes are radar targets to deal with. Other dummy radar targets are dotted around the Spadeadam range, including vehicle convoys and weapons systems. Take another look at the Priorlancy clearing, this time in extreme close-up using Live Local. You'll see a jet parked on a ramp ready to be used as a target for the low flying training runs. It is an old Sukhoi SU-22 Fitter, acquired by the RAF from the East German Air Force following German reunification. Take an even closer look with a ground photo.

It was revealed in 2016 that notorious criminal John "Goldfinger" Palmer was monitored for sixteen years by intelligence operatives and the National Crime Agency (NCA; when it was known as SOCA, Serious Organised Crime Agency). The top secret Operation Alpine – spying on Palmer, his activities and his associates – was based at the remote Spadeadam base because, allegedly, he had so many corrupt Metropolitan Police officers "in his pocket".

Surely the award for most picturesque – but long since abandoned – rocket test facility must go to the High Down site on the south west tip of the Isle of Wight next to the Needles Lighthouse.

Here in the 1950s and 1960s, the Saunders Roe company, based at Cowes at the north end of the island, conducted test launches of the Black Knight, Black Arrow and Black Prince systems. Early experiments were carried out here to evaluate a possible re-entry vehicle for the Blue Streak missile project.

End of Part 2
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