Sat 18 Apr
|Wiltshire Museum
LECTURE: Devizes Wireless Station – transatlantic signals and signals intelligence by David Sabin
Devizes Wireless Station on Morgan’s Hill is an incredibly rare site that contains both above surface physical remains and subsurface archaeology of National importance.
Time & Location
18 Apr 2026, 14:30 – 15:30
Wiltshire Museum, 41 Long St, Devizes SN10 1NS, UK
About the event
POSTED ON BEHALF OF AN NSIST MEMBER - this is not an NSIST event.
Marconi’s plan for an Imperial Wireless Chain linking the British Empire was conceived in the early 1900s after his successful 1901 transatlantic tests from Poldhu, Cornwall. A contract with the government was agreed in 1913 and construction of the British receiving station commenced at Morgan’s Hill, three miles north east of Devizes in the parish of Bishops Cannings.
Although the site was incomplete when the contract was cancelled by the government in late 1914, after the outbreak of WWI, the remains represent some of the only surviving evidence of the scheme in its pre-WWI form in Britain. In 1915 Royal Engineers converted the incomplete station for signals interception, intelligence work and direction finding, later in the war the site was also used for training in wireless intelligence.
By late 1919 the GPO had taken over the…