Currently owned by British Telecom, it is the largest satellite earth receiving station in the world with over 25 communications dishes in use (and over 60 dishes in total) - they provide a significant proportion of Britain's satellite connectivity and the site also links into undersea cable lines. The first dish, Antenna One (dubbed 'Arthur'), was built on the site in 1962 to link with Telstar, it was the first open parabolic design and is 29.5 metres in diameter and weighs 1,100 tonnes. The largest dish is the 32 metre diameter 'Merlin' (other dishes are named Guinevere, Tristan and Isolde after characters in Arthurian legend).
Ninety of the 120 workers at Goonhilly, in Cornwall, could lose their jobs or be redeployed, as satellite operations are moved to Madley, in Herefordshire.
Goonhilly's first dish, Arthur, was built to receive the first live transatlantic television broadcasts from the United States via the satelliteTelstar in 1962.
Goonhilly currently handles about 10 million telephone calls a week as well as computer data from the Atlantic and Indian Ocean areas, but its TV operations have been wound down over the years.
To obtain half price entry to Goonhilly, just print out the special offers voucher and present it when visiting.
With over 60 huge dishes, Goonhilly transmits millions of international phone calls, emails, internet connections, faxes and other data transmissions to every corner of the globe, via space or through undersea fibre optic cables.
We've welcomed over 1,000,000 visitors to Goonhilly since we opened and have become one of the major tourist attractions in the county.
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