Creslow Park is a large specialist technical facility located in Creslow, in the

Aylesbury Vale The Aylesbury Vale (or Vale of Aylesbury) is a geographical region in Buckinghamshire, England, which is bounded by the City of Milton Keynes and West Northamptonshire to the north, Central Bedfordshire and the Borough of Dacorum (Hertfordshir ...

in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

county of

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (, abbreviated ''Bucks'') is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshir ...

. It was originally established in 1944 as Creslow Transmission Station, a top secret radio communications facility for Section VII (Communications) of the

Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 (MI numbers, Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of Human i ...

. It is believed to have been one of three remote radio sites operated by the

Diplomatic Wireless Service The Diplomatic Wireless Service (DWS) was the name of the communications system set up for the British Foreign Office by Brigadier Richard Gambier-Parry, the first Foreign Office Director of Communications, in the latter part of 1945. It grew ou ...

and managed from

Hanslope Park Hanslope Park is located about half a mile south-east of the village of Hanslope in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. Once the manorial estate of the village, it is now owned by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Of ...

near Milton Keynes. All three of these sites were located in rural locations in Buckinghamshire, the other two being close to the villages of

Gawcott Gawcott is a village about southwest of Buckingham in the Buckinghamshire district in the ceremonial county of Buckinghamshire, England. The village is in the civil parish of Gawcott with Lenborough. History The toponym is derived from the Ol ...

and Poundon respectively.

Building and intended purpose

The original buildings and aerials were erected in 1944. Little is known about these buildings, but some photographs are available. In these photographs a semi-circular transmission building believed to be of the same design as the one located at Signal Hill in

(which still exists today) can be clearly seen. The site was completely overhauled and modernised in 1989-90 with many of the post-war buildings, including the main transmission building, being demolished and a new state-of-the-art building replacing them. The main building contains 5000sq/ft of highly secure, purpose built technical space divided into two areas, one denoted the 'Drive and Mux Room' (approx 1000sq/ft) and the other the 'Transmission Hall' (approx 4000sq/ft). The former appears to be where the signals were generated and is fully lined internally with a copper

faraday cage A Faraday cage or Faraday shield is an enclosure used to block some electromagnetic fields. A Faraday shield may be formed by a continuous covering of conductive material, or in the case of a Faraday cage, by a mesh of such materials. Faraday cag ...

. Dual-redundant power was designed in to the building from the outset and a dedicated HV connection to the grid supported the historical use of the site. This combined with 2x Rolls-Royce Diesel Generators provides excellent power redundancy. In recent years diverse fibre optic communications have been installed meaning the site has an abundance of connectivity.

Modern times

Documents found at the site suggest that the facility was decommissioned in 1995 and after sitting empty for several years it was sold to the local farmer upon whose land the access route resides. The site was leased to local

Internet Service Provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, no ...

Electronic Communities Ltd in late 2018 who are gradually converting the site for modern

data centre A data center is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. Since IT operations are crucial for business ...

use and as a central hub for their Fibre To The Home (

Fiber to the x Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber optic ...

) network. In November of 2019, a pair of IBM System 360 Model 20 were moved to Creslow Park for restoration.

References

External links

Creslow Park official website

Former FCO/MI6 Secure Communications Sites of Buckinghamshire 3 of 3 – Poundon

Former FCO/MI6 Secure Communications Sites of Buckinghamshire 2 of 3 – Creslow

Former FCO/MI6 Secure Communications Sites of Buckinghamshire 1 of 3 – Gawcott
{{coords, 51.8880, -0.8184, display=title Buildings and structures in Buckinghamshire