Building record MHG47791 - Bower, Composite Signals Organisation (c.s.o.s.), Reaster, Rdf Out-station No.1 Site

NMRS Report: (08/11/2004)
ND26SE 28 centred 25380 64714

For other sites (Nos.2-5) see ND26SW 61.00)

Reaster No.1 site RDF out-station for the C.S.O.S. Admiralty Radio station and GCHQ signals monitoring station. This site incorporated the operations room and two masts. The running of this station was taken over by GCHQ (Cheltenham) in 1967 when this area was upgraded by the erection of new masts and an operations room.
The station closed in 1978 has has been de-requisitioned and the site sold back to the landowner.
Information from Defence of Britain Project form (Mr A Gutteridge), 1986 and 1999 <1>

A planning application was submitted in June 2007 to convert the post war operations room to a dwelling; photos, plans and elevations were submitted to the HER. <2>

Noss Head and Bower were probably two of Caithness' most secret and clandestine wartime sites. Bower was a radio direction finding (D/F) station, originally set up by the Royal Navy. It's purpose was to locate the source of German Radio Transmissions by triangulating with other similar stations around the U.K. and Greenland. The station continued to operate after the end of the war and in 1967 its operation was taken over by GCHQ who continued to expand its operation here throughout the Cold War. The station finally closed in 1977, largely as a result of the increasing transfer of communications technology from radio to satellite. The main compound, located at Bower, has been cleared (see MHG47793). The post-war GCHQ era operations room has recently been converted (see above). One of the large aerial arrays is still intact. <3>

Photographs of the site, including GCHQ-era features and the extant aerial array, were submitted to the HER by David Barclay, Wick Planning Office. <4>

Photographs were contributed by Martin Briscoe via the Highland HER Flickr group.<5>