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Cheltenham |
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By April 1947 GCHQ was looking for a new home. The agreed starting point was that the present location, Eastcote, was wrong. The department had to find a peacetime home which would also work successfully in wartime. This dictated a move well away from London and the general feeling was that about a hundred miles from London was a suitable distance, and - bearing in mind the normal requirements whether in peace or war for face-to-face contacts and close liaison with central government Ministries - good rail and road connections with London would be required. Also Cheltenham had good transport connections (road, rail and air) with all parts of the country to enable contact with military establishments and our intercept stations. Several possible locations were considered, of which the general Bristol-Bath-Gloucester-Cheltenham area looked the most promising. The specific identification of Cheltenham was the result of private enterprise by a member of the department, who visited the town by chance in September 1947 and found the Benhall buildings, which he was told were soon to be vacated by the Ministry of Pensions. After much negotiation between central Government departments, by September 1949 it had been agreed that GCHQ should move to Cheltenham. The most difficult issue was the provision of housing, which was in very short supply and centrally rationed, and Cheltenham already had a long housing waiting list. The Treasury agreed to find extra funds to enable the town to employ national building firms, and to import labour from all over the country and an advance party was sent to Cheltenham almost immediately. At first it was thought that the original buildings would be adequate, but new workshops were needed at Benhall and a very large new office building, providing an extra 100,000 square feet, had to be built at Oakley. Because the domestic housing was ready sooner than expected it was the finishing of this building, in 1954, which marked the completion of the move. Click on the image to enlarge:
Go back to: Bletchley Park - Post War  |
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