Report - Alcatel-Lucent Building - Greenwich - November 2013

Rafiki · Nov 23, 2013

Third time visiting this place (but the first time since I bought a camera) and access is a doss so it was a very relaxed explore. Although there are a couple of buildings on the site I only managed one on this occasion as I started late in the day and by the end it was getting too dark for exploring without a tripod or decent torch I decided to head home. Some of the photos are a bit grainy too as a result of the poor lighting and lack of tripod but hopefully they're still just about up to standard.

History (courtesy of a past report by Gabe):

In 1857 submarine cable manufacturers Glass, Elliot & Co and W.T.Henley took over the site, Henleys subsequently moved to North Woolwich. As well as jointly making the short-lived first transatlantic telegraph cable, Glass, Elliot supplied many early telegraph cables including Corsicaâ€“Sardinia, Lowestoftâ€“Zandvoort, Maltaâ€“Alexandria and Sicilyâ€“Algeria. In the 1860s Glass, Elliot was absorbed into the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company Telcon which manufactured a second transatlantic telegraph cable at Enderby's Wharf. This was successfully laid by the SS Great Eastern. The company went on to manufacture many more transatlantic cables, and others to Australia, New Zealand, India, Hong Kong etc.

In 1935 the site came into the ownership of the newly formed Submarine Cables Ltd. After ownership by BICC and AEI, in 1970 it passed to STC. Manufacture of submarine cable at the site ended in 1975 (transferring to Southampton), and work concentrated on manufacture of optical repeaters and amplifiers. It subsequently passed to Northern Telecom and then to Alcatel in 1994.