Crowsley Park
Encyclopedia
Crowsley Park is a 160-acre country estate in South Oxfordshire
, central-southern England
, owned by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
, Crowsley Park has been the site of a signals-receiving station used by BBC Monitoring
, based at Caversham Park
, three miles to the south.
Crowsley Park House, a Grade II listed 18th century mansion house, sits in its own grounds within the estate and is still used as a private residence. Smaller houses on the estate — South Lodge (at the main entrance to the park), North Lodge, Keeper's Cottage and Crowsley Park Lodge — are also privately occupied.
Seventy-six acres of woodland
on the eastern and northern sides of the park, known as Crowsley Park Woods, is leased to the Forestry Commission
.
The remainder of the estate consists of wooded parkland used as cattle and horse pasture
on which the BBC's satellite dish
es and many other radio aerials (antennas)
are placed.
The BBC leases the estate to private tenants, operating its receiving station from a modern building near the centre of the park.
Crowsley Park's history includes an association with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
, author of the Sherlock Holmes
detective stories.
, and a similar distance southwest of the smaller town of Henley-on-Thames
, Crowsley Park lies in a quiet rural setting, close to the southwest end of the Chiltern Hills
. It is within the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
.
The quietness of the location, especially the absence of electrical noise
, was among the factors that drew the BBC to the site.
In 2003, the hamlet
of Crowsley became part of the newly-created civil parish of Binfield Heath
. Until then, both Crowsley and Binfield Heath had been part of the civil parish of Shiplake
. It is about 40 miles west of the centre of London
.
, near Evesham in Worcestershire
, to Caversham Park, with Crowsley Park acting as the service's receiving station, picking up radio broadcasts from Nazi Germany
and many other countries.
Shortwave
, mediumwave and longwave
receivers were installed in huts at Crowsley, built some distance from the main house. The signals received were fed down telephone lines to Caversham to be listened to by monitoring staff. A more permanent building was later erected for the receiving station.
In 1974, the BBC's separate, and larger, receiving station was moved from Tatsfield
, on the North Downs
south of London, to merge with the facility at Crowsley.The Tatsfield station, which had been established in 1929, ten years before the Monitoring Service, was substantially larger than the Crowsley operation. It was formally known as the BBC Engineering Measurement and Receiving Station. The Crowsley station was expanded to accommodate the equipment and staff transferred from Tatsfield. Following the merger, Crowsley was formally known as the "BBC Receiving Station" to reflect the range of work it did for various parts of the BBC (in addition to Monitoring) and other international broadcasters. This name is no longer used, the site now simply being an outstation of the Caversham Park operation.
As part of an engineering upgrade in the 1980s, a number of satellite dishes were installed, joining the Beverage
and rhombic
aerials and curtain arrays already on the site. Additional rhombic aerials were erected to boost shortwave reception from the Middle East and North Africa, alongside those already used for signals from Europe and the Soviet Union
, the latter having been the station's priority target during the Cold War
. One of the two curtain aerials (which had been used for the relaying by the BBC of the Voice of America
) was taken down.VOA shortwave transmissions from the USA were received at Crowsley and fed to the BBC transmitting station at Woofferton
to be rebroadcast to their target audiences.
(published 1901-02) in which "Sir Henry Baskerville" is a leading character.
The connection with the Baskervilles is preserved in statues of "hell hounds" with spears through their mouths which sit on the stone gateposts at the entrance to the park and atop the front of Crowsley Park House.
A pub
in the nearby village of Shiplake is called The Baskerville Arms.
, gives a clear view of the house. There is a distant view of the house, through an ornamental avenue of trees, from the public road junction at the southwest corner of the park. Four very large (11-metre diameter) satellite dishes are visible from the public road (Devil's Hill) that forms the northern boundary of the park.
The Forestry Commission woodland is open to the public, including on a public bridleway
.
Parts of an episode of the BBC television science-fiction drama series Doctor Who
were filmed in the grounds of Crowsley Park in December 1980. In one scene, the Doctor climbs the tower that carried the BBC receiving station's VHF and UHF aerials. The tower remains in place to this day, although all the aerials on it have been removed.
The village of Shiplake has a bed and breakfast
establishment called Crowsley House.
South Oxfordshire
South Oxfordshire is a local government district in Oxfordshire, England. Its council is based in Crowmarsh Gifford, just outside Wallingford....
, central-southern England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, owned by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
Overview
Since the Second World WarWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Crowsley Park has been the site of a signals-receiving station used by BBC Monitoring
BBC Monitoring
BBC Monitoring is a division of the British Broadcasting Corporation which monitors, and reports on, mass media worldwide. Based at Caversham Park in Caversham, Reading in southern England, it has a number of overseas bureaux including Moscow, Nairobi, Kiev, Baku, Tashkent, Cairo, Tbilisi, Yerevan...
, based at Caversham Park
Caversham Park
Caversham Park is a Victorian stately home with parkland in the suburb of Caversham, on the outskirts of Reading, England. Historically it was in Oxfordshire, but since 1911 it has been in Berkshire.-Early History:...
, three miles to the south.
Crowsley Park House, a Grade II listed 18th century mansion house, sits in its own grounds within the estate and is still used as a private residence. Smaller houses on the estate — South Lodge (at the main entrance to the park), North Lodge, Keeper's Cottage and Crowsley Park Lodge — are also privately occupied.
Seventy-six acres of woodland
Woodland
Ecologically, a woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of...
on the eastern and northern sides of the park, known as Crowsley Park Woods, is leased to the Forestry Commission
Forestry Commission
The Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for forestry in Great Britain. Its mission is to protect and expand Britain's forests and woodlands and increase their value to society and the environment....
.
The remainder of the estate consists of wooded parkland used as cattle and horse pasture
Pasture
Pasture is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep or swine. The vegetation of tended pasture, forage, consists mainly of grasses, with an interspersion of legumes and other forbs...
on which the BBC's satellite dish
Satellite dish
A satellite dish is a dish-shaped type of parabolic antenna designed to receive microwaves from communications satellites, which transmit data transmissions or broadcasts, such as satellite television.-Principle of operation:...
es and many other radio aerials (antennas)
Antenna (radio)
An antenna is an electrical device which converts electric currents into radio waves, and vice versa. It is usually used with a radio transmitter or radio receiver...
are placed.
The BBC leases the estate to private tenants, operating its receiving station from a modern building near the centre of the park.
Crowsley Park's history includes an association with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
, author of the Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
detective stories.
Location
Despite being only two miles north of the edge of the large town of ReadingReading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....
, and a similar distance southwest of the smaller town of Henley-on-Thames
Henley-on-Thames
Henley-on-Thames is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in South Oxfordshire, England, about 10 miles downstream and north-east from Reading, 10 miles upstream and west from Maidenhead...
, Crowsley Park lies in a quiet rural setting, close to the southwest end of the Chiltern Hills
Chiltern Hills
The Chiltern Hills form a chalk escarpment in South East England. They are known locally as "the Chilterns". A large portion of the hills was designated officially as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1965.-Location:...
. It is within the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is an area of countryside considered to have significant landscape value in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, that has been specially designated by the Countryside Agency on behalf of the United Kingdom government; the Countryside Council for Wales on...
.
The quietness of the location, especially the absence of electrical noise
Electromagnetic interference
Electromagnetic interference is disturbance that affects an electrical circuit due to either electromagnetic induction or electromagnetic radiation emitted from an external source. The disturbance may interrupt, obstruct, or otherwise degrade or limit the effective performance of the circuit...
, was among the factors that drew the BBC to the site.
In 2003, the hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
of Crowsley became part of the newly-created civil parish of Binfield Heath
Binfield Heath
Binfield Heath is a village and civil parish in South Oxfordshire, England. It is about southwest of Henley-on-Thames and about northeast of Reading, Berkshire.Until 2003, Binfield Heath and the hamlet of Crowsley were part of the civil parish of Shiplake....
. Until then, both Crowsley and Binfield Heath had been part of the civil parish of Shiplake
Shiplake
Shiplake is a village and civil parish about south of Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, England on the River Thames.-History:The Church of England parish church of St. Peter and St. Paul dates from at least the 13th century, but in 1869 the Gothic Revival architect G.E. Street rebuilt the chancel,...
. It is about 40 miles west of the centre of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
BBC receiving station
Crowsley Park and Caversham Park were acquired by the BBC during the Second World War. In 1943, the BBC moved the headquarters of its Monitoring ServiceThe formal name was shortened to "BBC Monitoring" in the 1980s. from Wood Norton HallWood Norton, Worcestershire
Wood Norton Hall is a Grade II listed Victorian stately home near Evesham, Worcestershire, England. It was the last home in England of Prince Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who claimed the throne of France...
, near Evesham in Worcestershire
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
, to Caversham Park, with Crowsley Park acting as the service's receiving station, picking up radio broadcasts from Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and many other countries.
Shortwave
Shortwave
Shortwave radio refers to the upper MF and all of the HF portion of the radio spectrum, between 1,800–30,000 kHz. Shortwave radio received its name because the wavelengths in this band are shorter than 200 m which marked the original upper limit of the medium frequency band first used...
, mediumwave and longwave
Longwave
In radio, longwave refers to parts of radio spectrum with relatively long wavelengths. The term is a historic one dating from the early 20th century, when the radio spectrum was considered to consist of long, medium and short wavelengths...
receivers were installed in huts at Crowsley, built some distance from the main house. The signals received were fed down telephone lines to Caversham to be listened to by monitoring staff. A more permanent building was later erected for the receiving station.
In 1974, the BBC's separate, and larger, receiving station was moved from Tatsfield
Tatsfield
Tatsfield is a village of some 1800 inhabitants located in the Tandridge district of Surrey, England, and 16 miles south south-east of Charing Cross in London...
, on the North Downs
North Downs
The North Downs are a ridge of chalk hills in south east England that stretch from Farnham in Surrey to the White Cliffs of Dover in Kent. The North Downs lie within two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty , the Surrey Hills and the Kent Downs...
south of London, to merge with the facility at Crowsley.The Tatsfield station, which had been established in 1929, ten years before the Monitoring Service, was substantially larger than the Crowsley operation. It was formally known as the BBC Engineering Measurement and Receiving Station. The Crowsley station was expanded to accommodate the equipment and staff transferred from Tatsfield. Following the merger, Crowsley was formally known as the "BBC Receiving Station" to reflect the range of work it did for various parts of the BBC (in addition to Monitoring) and other international broadcasters. This name is no longer used, the site now simply being an outstation of the Caversham Park operation.
As part of an engineering upgrade in the 1980s, a number of satellite dishes were installed, joining the Beverage
Beverage antenna
The Beverage Antenna is a relatively inexpensive but very effective long wire receiving antenna used by amateur radio, shortwave listening, and longwave radio DXers and military applications. Harold H. Beverage experimented with receiving antennas similar to the Beverage antenna in 1919 at the...
and rhombic
Rhombic antenna
A rhombic antenna is a broadband directional antenna co-invented by Edmond Bruce and Harald Friis, mostly commonly used in HF ranges.- Technical Detail :...
aerials and curtain arrays already on the site. Additional rhombic aerials were erected to boost shortwave reception from the Middle East and North Africa, alongside those already used for signals from Europe and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, the latter having been the station's priority target during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. One of the two curtain aerials (which had been used for the relaying by the BBC of the Voice of America
Voice of America
Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...
) was taken down.VOA shortwave transmissions from the USA were received at Crowsley and fed to the BBC transmitting station at Woofferton
Woofferton transmitting station
The Woofferton transmitting station is a shortwave broadcasting site at Woofferton, south of Ludlow, Shropshire, England.The station was originally built by the BBC during World War II to house additional shortwave broadcasting transmitters...
to be rebroadcast to their target audiences.
The Baskerville legacy
Among Crowsley Park's former owners were the Baskerville family, one of whose members, Henry Baskerville, was High Sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1847. Stories about the family and its association with fierce dogs were among the inspirations for Conan Doyle's The Hound of the BaskervillesThe Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of four crime novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an...
(published 1901-02) in which "Sir Henry Baskerville" is a leading character.
The connection with the Baskervilles is preserved in statues of "hell hounds" with spears through their mouths which sit on the stone gateposts at the entrance to the park and atop the front of Crowsley Park House.
A pub
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
in the nearby village of Shiplake is called The Baskerville Arms.
Public access
The estate is closed to public vehicular traffic and neither Crowsley Park House nor the BBC station are open to the public. However, the park is crossed by two public footpaths. The western path (starting from the main entrance), which is part of the southern extension to the Chiltern WayChiltern Way
The Chiltern Way is a waymarked long-distance footpath in southern England in the United Kingdom.-The route:The route is circular and runs through the Chiltern Hills region passing through parts of the counties of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire.The meandering route...
, gives a clear view of the house. There is a distant view of the house, through an ornamental avenue of trees, from the public road junction at the southwest corner of the park. Four very large (11-metre diameter) satellite dishes are visible from the public road (Devil's Hill) that forms the northern boundary of the park.
The Forestry Commission woodland is open to the public, including on a public bridleway
Bridle path
A bridle path is a thoroughfare originally made for horses, but which these days serves a wide range of interests, including hikers, walkers and cyclists as well as equestrians. The laws relating to permissions vary from country to country...
.
Miscellaneous
Crowsley was once spelt Crouchley, suggesting that the first syllable of Crowsley may once have been pronounced to rhyme with cow. Today, Crowsley is pronounced with the first four letters sounding the same as the bird.Parts of an episode of the BBC television science-fiction drama series Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
were filmed in the grounds of Crowsley Park in December 1980. In one scene, the Doctor climbs the tower that carried the BBC receiving station's VHF and UHF aerials. The tower remains in place to this day, although all the aerials on it have been removed.
The village of Shiplake has a bed and breakfast
Bed and breakfast
A bed and breakfast is a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast, but usually does not offer other meals. Since the 1980s, the meaning of the term has also extended to include accommodations that are also known as "self-catering" establishments...
establishment called Crowsley House.