Beaumanor Hall is a stately home with a park in the small village of Woodhouse on the edge of the Charnwood Forest, near the town of Loughborough in Leicestershire. A stately home is, strictly speaking, one of about 500 large properties built in England between the mid-16th century and the early part of the 20th century, as well as converted abbeys and other church property (after the Dissolution of the Monasteries). ... Charnwood Forest is an upland tract in north-western Leicestershire, England. ... Map sources for Loughborough at grid reference SK536195 Loughboroughs carillon Loughborough (pronounced luff-burra or luff-bruh) is the largest town in Leicestershire, England (City of Leicester excluded). ... Leicestershire (abbreviated Leics) is a landlocked county in central England. ...

Beaumanor Park History

Until just preceding the Second World War in 1939, the famous Herrick family owned the park. The Estate consisted of Beaumanor Hall, several farms, St Mary's in the Elms church, the vicarage house (Garats Hay), workers houses/cottages along Forest Road and 350 acres (1.4 km²) of beautiful parkland. Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1939 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... An Australian park A park is any of a number of geographic features. ...

In 1939 the War Department requisitioned the estate, including Garats Hay, and the vicar moved to a cottage in the village. Jump to: navigation, search 1939 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... War Department may refer to the military establishments of several different countries: British War Department Confederate War Department United States Department of War, under the leadership of the United States Secretary of War (until 1947) See also: defense minister This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other...

The park became a secret listening station where encrypted enemy signals (Morse code) were intercepted and sent to the famous Station X at Bletchley Park for decoding. Beaumanor Park was to be the home of the War Office ‘Y’ Group for the duration of the war. A listening station is a facility established to monitor radio signals and analyse their content to secure information and intelligence for use by the security and diplomatic community and others. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1922 Chart of the Morse Code Letters and Numerals Morse Code is a method for transmitting information, using standardized sequences of short and long marks or pulses -- commonly known as dots and dashes -- for the letters, numerals and special characters of a message. ... During World War II, British and American cryptographers at Bletchley Park broke a large number of Axis codes and ciphers, including the German Enigma machine. ...

After the war (1945) the Beaumanor estate passed back to Lt. Col. Assheton Penn Curzon Howe Herrick, who in 1946, for financial reasons (death duties, etc.), decided to dispose of his assets. In a sale conducted at the Town Hall in Loughborough on December 20–21 1946, the War Department bought both Beaumanor Hall and Garat's Hay and some of the immediate surrounding grounds used during the war. Jump to: navigation, search 1945 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1946 was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... Map sources for Loughborough at grid reference SK536195 Loughboroughs carillon Loughborough (pronounced luff-burra or luff-bruh) is the largest town in Leicestershire, England (City of Leicester excluded). ... Jump to: navigation, search December 20 is the 354th day of the year (355th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search December 21 is the 355th day of the year (356th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1946 was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... War Department may refer to the military establishments of several different countries: British War Department Confederate War Department United States Department of War, under the leadership of the United States Secretary of War (until 1947) See also: defense minister This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other...

Beaumanor Hall History 1939–1946

From 1939 the Hall itself was occupied by Number 6 Intelligence school, and the rooms inside Beaumanor Hall were used as a training centre for the Civilian Staff of the Post Office, Civil Service and Merchant Navy. The Royal Corps of Signals, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force were also having military staff trained inside the hall. Small-town post office and town hall in Lockhart, Alabama A post office is a facility (in most countries, a government one) where the public can purchase postage stamps for mailing correspondence or merchandise, and also drop off or pick up packages or other special-delivery items. ... In most seafaring countries, the merchant marine (or merchant navy) is a fleet of ships used for commerce that sometimes complements the navy. ... The Royal Corps of Signals (sometimes referred to incorrectly as the Royal Signal Corps and often known simply as the Royal Signals or R Sigs) is one of the arms (combat support corps) of the British Army. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the senior service of the British armed services, being the oldest of its three branches. ... The Royal Air Force (often abbreviated to RAF) is the air force branch of the British Armed Forces. ...

The huge cellars stretching underneath the whole of the building were used as electricians workshops. The out buildings and stables at the side and rear of the hall were used as workshops. These housed Aerial riggers, a Barracks store, M T Office, Transport Garage workshop and the Instrument Mechanics Laboratory.

By late 1941, most of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force military personnel had left for duties at other y stations, and the main part of the site became the home of the Royal signals. Military personnel were still being trained inside the hall for various tasks until the end of the war. In February 1942 the first of the newly trained ladies of the Auxiliary Territorial Service arrived at Beaumanor and were billeted in outlying villages and Garats Hay Hall. 1941 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the senior service of the British armed services, being the oldest of its three branches. ... The Royal Air Force (often abbreviated to RAF) is the air force branch of the British Armed Forces. ... February is the second month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the year. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

By 1943, room sixty-one on the top floor of the hall was being used for Radio Finger Printing (Ackbar 13). This new technology was employed to uniquely identify the particular wireless set that was being used to send the transmissions. Jump to: navigation, search 1943 is a common year starting on Friday. ...

Special receiving sets filmed the signals as they came in, like a cathode ray tube, and then the signals were captured on film and developed. Light tables were then used to compare the signals so they could verify who was sending them. A civilian from military intelligence at Bletchley Park was in charge of this room.

The Radio Direction Finding records room was next door and kept records of the signals' exact locations of origin. A radio direction finder, or RDF, is a device for finding the direction to a radio source. ...

In 1940 the use of the hall for all of these different functions allowed for the required specially designed wireless set rooms to be constructed in the grounds of the hall. This was instead of converting the existing rooms within the building for this purpose. A field to the north of the hall was chosen as the ideal location to construct the new set huts. Jump to: navigation, search 1940 was a leap year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...

The Operational Huts

The War Office Y Group had acquired an architect that worked as part of the local staff at Beaumanor, and he was tasked with designing the set rooms and other buildings. These were to be disguised and fit into their surroundings by being made to look like normal out buildings associated with a country house. This disguising is unique to Beaumanor, and there are no current records of any other buildings the military used during the war being disguised in this way.

A twenty acre (81,000 m²) field to the north of the hall was chosen as the appropriate site to build the required operational set rooms (huts). The huts were spaced far enough apart to avoid collateral damage should a bombing raid occur. Each hut was brick built with blast walls, and then a disguising outer covering was put over it. An acre is an English unit of area. ...

The huts were disguised in different ways: one to look like a Cart shed with Barn (J), two to look like cottages (H&I), the fourth to look like stables (K), the fifth was disguised as a Glasshouse (M) Block, and the sixth, Hut G, a Cricket Pavilion complete with a false clock tower.

To give them an identity, the huts were each given a letter of the alphabet. The four huts around the perimeter of the field were lettered H, I, J & K. These huts were to be the four set rooms, which housed the wireless receivers for intercepting messages.

All of the cables and aerial feeds were located in underground ducts. Each hut had a pneumatic tube for sending the handwritten, received messages to G hut via a cylinder, which was shot down the tube. This tube system was also underground and out of sight.

In order to carefully conceal them, the other huts were given wooden exteriors and located in the wooded area to the rear of the hall on its western side. These huts were lettered A, B, C, D, E & F.

• This article contains text that has been reproduced by permission of Beaumanor & Garats HaY Amateur Radio Society M0GBY.

External links

• Beaumanor & Garats HaY ARS
• Bletchley Park Museum
• Garats HaY Branch of Royal British Legion